By: Diane Benjamin
This is what Connect claims their mission is: https://www.connect-transit.com/about/mission.asp
Here’s what citizens think the mission is: Provide transportation to people that need the service.
From yesterday’s Press Release: https://blnnews.com/2019/05/17/idot-conspires-with-connect-transit/
Connect doesn’t agree:
Connect thinks “talent” will be attracted to buses. How do empty buses make the communities walkable, bikable, and welcoming?
Another questions: Why should taxpayers pay a $12 million a year subsidy, not including capital projects, so maybe “talent” will want to stay here?
Let’s say that “talent” gets a job making $50,000 a year. Taxpayers should pay their transportation when they can easily afford it themselves?
‘Talent is going to pick here instead of somewhere like Chicago because of buses?
Hello! Any Common sense on the Connect Transit Board?
Meanwhile, the people who can not afford or physically provide their own transportation are being ignored. Routes are cut and fee increases are hurting the very people Connect must help.
How much “talent” currently rides? Connect can’t even say how many bodies ride.
It gets better:
On March 19, 2012 the Normal Town Council amended the ordinance for the structure of Connect Transit. It was on the Omnibus Agenda so it wasn’t even discussed: Minutes: http://www.normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/791
What’s in it? Beginning on PDF page 139 https://www.normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/787
See PDF page 145:
Has either Council ever publicly discuss a Connect transit budget? Not in depth if they have at all.
That last paragraph looks like eliminating the Olive Route should have been submitted for approval! Isn’t that a major change?
How about fare increases? Didn’t the Connect Board just declare them instead of getting approval?
The citizens who are being completely ignored and not served by Connect Transit need to refer back to (f) (1) above.
Does anyone on either Council care about the people who need public transportation? Shouldn’t they be the mission first?
Chris Koos and Steve Stockton both signed the new structure. They put safeguards in for citizens. Now Koos and Renner need to enforce what was signed.
I don’t want to judge a book by its cover but in my daily travels around the cities, I see the people who are waiting on the bus to pick them up. Let’s just say that they really don’t look like the movers and shakers of a 21st Century economy. Let’s be honest here, most of them are physically, economically, or intellectually challenged individuals who have no other option but Transit Disconnect. To say that having this bus system in place is part of the “quality of life” equation for attracting “talent” to our cities is a complete fantasy that no sane person could believe. The bus system is here for the transportation of people who have no other option. As I have said before, there are better and more efficient ways to accomplish moving disadvantaged people around. We need to come up with a common sense solution and then shut down this wasteful black hole of taxpayer money transit system.
I travel quite a bit. In communities our size I frequently see small buses – a little larger than the parking shuttle at the airport making more frequent stops. Super low cost makes providing the service very reasonable. The big buses in these communities tend to be operated by the university, only for the university and run routes aligned with student housing. This let’s the university work out their own economics.
Smaller buses are the best solution not only in town, but should be given serious consideration by rural school districts. If you don’t agree, take a look at your property taxes and check your school district’s
payment. Maybe Uptown State should have its own bus system. That way us tax payers would not pay so many taxes in so many directions.