By: Diane Benjamin
I don’t know how this group, including both City Managers, sits in a room and thinks any of this is an efficient use of tax dollars.
Connect Transit held a Board Meeting on June 24th. See 2:30 on the video below. CT built a gravel lot to park all the buses that don’t run because employees needed more parking spaces. FOIA will be filed.
Taxpayers should be thrilled to learn CT is operating more efficiently now. They transport 19.6 people per hour on all their huge buses. According to this page CT runs 27 buses: https://connect-transit.com/riders/connect-transit-faqs
That is why you see empty buses and why many of them are now “wrapped” so you can’t see the empty inside.
From PDF page 9: https://connect-transit.com/file/3674/2025%2006%2024_Board%20Packet.pdf
The first column is May 2025, the next column is May 2024.
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Efficiency must mean increased subsidies.
Ridership in May, keep in mind transfers to another bus are count as 2 rides – both ways:
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Consulting fees for May totaled $42,854, including $20,000 to the Mclean County Regional Planning Commission. (Also called passing tax dollars around)
A $4000 per month consulting contract with Cornerstone was extended for another year to keep State grants rolling in. Also extended for another year is a contract with Cardinal Infrastructure to get federal grants, $7000 a month.
As reported previously, May 2025 showed a new historic loss for ONE MONTH: $1,660,240.
Entire meeting:
Well lets hope, the Connect Transit Center in Downtown Bloomington doesn’t take as long to build as the Eau Claire, WI Transit center which STILL isn’t finished “Ground was broken on the project in February 2021, and completion is now expected by August 2025, officials with the developers and the City of Eau Claire say.”
It’s very simple when tax dollars are involved those in power or have government jobs they all could care less what costs are. A high up city employee told me many years ago that it is free money,”tax dollars”. That head set has not changed.
People just don’t vote and there are too many living off the free money that would never vote to support change.
So how do we clean house?????
It’s looks like some people want a planned collapse.
DOGE this group. This is what DOGE needs to look at and expose. Total waste of taxpayer money.
Many of the problems with Connect Transit would work themselves out if they would just downsize the the busses.
A lot of grift and make work jobs depend on the continued use of large busses that drive around 80% + empty. The Transit Board is complicit in this wasteful grift.
Grants specify what size bus you can buy, common sense doesn’t matter.
Grand Total of grants to Connect Transit in the last decade
(Known): Approximately $31.904–36.904 million (2015–2025), excluding unquantified CARES, CRRSAA, ARPA, Reduced Fare, and local municipal contributions.
CORRECTION – A deeper AI search –
Total Estimated Subsidies (2015–2025)
Federal Subsidies:
2015–2016: ~$500,000–$1 million (FTA Section 5311).
2018: $1.2 million (FTA Bus and Bus Facilities).
2020: $8 million (FTA Low-No).
2020–2022: ~$5–10 million (CARES Act, estimated).
2021–2023: ~$3–7 million (CRRSAA/ARPA, estimated).
2025: $284,000 (FTA Section 5311).
Total: ~$17.984–$27.484 million.
State Subsidies:
2015–2025:
~$13 million (DOAP, $1.3 million/year).
2020: $9.92 million (Rebuild Illinois).
2015–2025: ~$1–2 million (Reduced Fare, estimated).
Total: ~$23.92–$24.92 million.
Local Subsidies:
2015–2025:
~$20–30 million (Bloomington/Normal, estimated).
Total: ~$20–30 million.
Grand Total:
~$61.904–$82.404 million (2015–2025),
including estimates for unquantified CARES, CRRSAA, ARPA, Reduced Fare, and local contributions.