By: Diane Benjamin
I really hope you enjoy seeing huge empty or almost empty buses running all over Bloomington-Normal because you are paying for them!
The January finances are on online: http://www.connect-transit.com/documents/February%2028,%202017%20Regular%20Board%20Meeting%20Binder1.pdf
Income in January was a whooping $110, 632.
Expenses were $1,052,685.
Anybody see a problem?
Anybody see the same problem connect Transit has every month?
They lost $942,054 in ONE MONTH!
It wasn’t a bad month – that’s considered a budgeted loss!
See page 9 – Ridership continues to plummet. except for “demand response” in much smaller vehicles.
Since total income was $110,632 for 166,215 riders – that means the average paid was .67.
More stats from page 9:
Only a communist could love the Revenue/Expense Ratio. Last year for January every dollar of costs Connect incurred earned thirteen cents. This year it’s down to TEN CENTS.
Meanwhile, the cost for running “fixed route” and “demand response” skyrocketed. Maintenance expenses are also up even though many NEW buses are on the road.
Check out more stats on page 10.
Connect Transit is a failing miserably to meet almost all their benchmarks.
Bloomington will throw away another $1,188,050 next year on this failed social experiment to get you out of your car.
Normal has a line item labeled “Mass Transit” for $839,965.
Enjoy the empty buses! Because Connect Transit isn’t even trying to operate in the black, you have less money in your pocket!
Remember these facts the next time Renner mentions the “award-winning” bus system we have. Subsidizing failure is what government is REALLY good at!
So in January of 2017 the bus system lost $30,388 per day. That is insane!
I’m glad I’m not alone here! The inmates are running the asylum!
What business could operate with red ink like that? Even Moe, Larry and Curly could do better! I would be ashamed to present numbers like this to the taxpayers. $30,388 a day flushed down the drain? Imagine what could be done with that kind of money?
Andrew Johnson moved here and drove Bloomington’s Public Transit, now called Connect Transit, into financial ruin. Future State funding may not be made available. He is leaving the mess behind to go to Madison, WI. Thanks, Mr. Johnson.
$30 K a month and KOOS can MANAGE OUR money!
And let Tari TAX it! What a WONDERFUL team!
both NEED to go!
Think of all our poor neighbors who could be fed with this kind of Money! Outrageous!
That doesn’t even include the damage they do to the streets and the lost time from the extra traffic they create.
Tonight about 7:00: A Connect Transit bus, idling with no one on board, on the East side of the Kroger Gas Station on College. Blocking traffic for at least 15 minutes. Your tax dollars at work.
This is painful to read, nearly a million dollars per month loss. A handful of buses could be left on the few routes that need that kind of capacity and contract with some people with vans to run the routes that are continually empty. The Koos types wouldn’t like that because you would have to give up the “free” federal dollars and mini vans going in and out of the transportation center would not look nearly as impressive from city hall.
If it were a private business, they’d have been done years ago. There is no accountability when it’s taxpayer money. But the overall Utopian goal is to make driving personal cars so expensive you have no other option but to take public transportation….to make it too expensive or administratively difficult to own private property and move people into urban areas where public transportation exists. That’ll guarantee ridership.
Johnson is only concerned about himself and his career. No management skills, lets people that were fired, resign instead to protect himself from the public. Good he is going to a new job, Bloomington needs a change.