By: Diane Benjamin
More on this story: https://blnnews.com/2024/05/29/a-new-low-for-connect-transit/
In April Connect Transit crossed the $1.4 million mark for the first time.
That is with Fixed Route ridership up, expensive Mobility ridership down, and Flex providing 4,684 rides.
PDF page 8: https://connect-transit.com/file/2405/05%2028%202024_Board%20Meeting%20Packet.pdf
Most of the high loss has to be contributed by:
- More service hours
- Fewer riders per hour
- More buses on the road
If 60 huge buses were running routes and only 21.94 people boarding per hour, what do you have?
Empty buses!
PDF page 11:
Efficiency is 21.94 total people per hour on 60 huge buses only in an alternate universe.
PDF page 29: The below will be paid to Cardinal Infrastructure to lobby for Connect Transit.
PDF page 31: Citizens Committee gone
PDF page 33. Be careful to use the correct title for David Braun:
I wonder if connect isn’t more or less run by the state or federal government. In that they are told what busses to buy, the mileage of routes to run, or other major aspects of their operations. Probably connected to how much grant mot they get.
Some of the solutions to their problems seem obvious and I can’t believe people with any common sense would make the decision that they do unless they are forced to by higher powers.
They cannot be serious. 22 people per hour spread over 60 buses!!! This is incredible. It would be way cheaper just to have Connect operate like Uber. You call them up and they send a standard passenger automobile out to drive you wherever you want to go. That would be massively cheaper than the POS system they have now.
Who do you hold accountable for this nonsense? It has to start with the board of directors. Keep in mind that includes vice chair Julie Hile who is the biggest big government bureaucrat on the planet. She’s even established a very lucrative business bilking the government at every level. Her involvement on this board is at best a conflict of interest in which she has greatly profited in her consulting business. Don’t expect any changes under her leadership. In fact, it’s this way because of her.
Then there’s our two city managers who specialize in bilking taxpayer dollars. It’s in their job description. Ryan Whitehouse needs to be in jail for extortion of tax dollars, Judy Buchanan should be in a nursing home and I don’t know enough about the rest of them to comment beyond guilt by association.
Finally, at least one of the representatives for the town of Normal is still an empty chair. This has been the case since at least 2019 and is clearly by design.
It starts with the mayors who appointed them