By: Diane Benjamin
Connect Transit didn’t report their loss for June because 6/30/26 is their year-end. They always delay that reporting.
https://connect-transit.com/file/4510/2026%2007%2028_BoT%20Meeting%20Packet.pdf
It doesn’t matter how thick the bus wrap is to cover the windows. We still know those huge buses are empty and confirmed by what Connect reports monthly:
.
.
For June 2026:
1st pic:
Fixed Revenue Buses = 25
2nd pic:
Fixed Ridership/Revenue Hour = 13.69
That means those 25 buses were empty almost half of the time they were roaming the streets.
The only bright spot is: In June of 2025 Connect was running 32 buses with 14.27 riders per hour. (empty more than half of the time)
All of the * are because financial information wasn’t reported.
Mental illness is real folks. Of course your tax dollars and debt are paying for it.
Raise prices, decrease lines, and sell off assets. Most major city bus programs are 40% covered by fairs. Most smaller city transit programs are 20%. Connect transit is single digits covered by ridership. We don’t need it. Not in Our Town.
Taxpayers make up all of that difference btw.
Empty buses, but full ego’s.
While passing thru Rockford, which has a slightly higher population than B-N, I noticed their transit buses were smaller.
Concerning the BNT bus article. Why doesn’t the McLean County Regional Planning Commission conduct a ridership survey as they did in the past? This type of survey would identify which routes are used the most and which routes could use some tweaking to increase ridership. The public should be made aware of the results of such a survey. Low ridership routes could be analyzed by the MCRPC transportation planner and suggestions for improvements made.
MCRPC wants to establish a separate taxing body for transportation. I’m not sure they are interested in efficiency.
Aren’t they the group pushing for more destruction of farmland with an east side bypass?
The approach used here in B/N seems really outdated!
They want to run great big buses on these random outdated routes – because that’s what they have always done.
People don’t have an extra two hours to ride one bus and then catch another bus and then walk 5 more blocks just to get to their job! And then do the whole thing in reverse, after working their shift.
Folks are choosing to pay more for an Uber/Lyft so they can go from door-to-door.
This is to save themselves the time and trouble of trying to deal with the busses, but this approach also hits their budget!
Seems like the city busses need to operate more like the Uber/Lyft system with small vehicles and more of a Point A to Point B approach.
Common sense isn’t allowed
As an avid rider back when I still lived in B-N, I was gratefully humbled by its convenience when I was down on my transportation luck, but honestly astonished at the frequency of lonely rides. I have know lived in Valparaiso, Indiana (too lazy to look up actual population data – but it’s very strikingly similar to B-N in perceptible demographics & general “vibe”) for two years and, again, was reliant on the bus to get to work when I was between cars.
The Valpo routes are similar in length and reach as the BloNo layout and run in hourly increments. Huge difference is the actual bus sizes (as an earlier poster suggested, more like the “old folks home”-style models) and whether early morning, post-shift evening prime time, afternoon shopping, or weekend to Mass or events, they are always 3/4 to near capacity full.
Obviously, it would seem difficult logistics to overhaul the Connection fleet, but in an ideal “wish list” solution world…
Not very green of the city to roll out such huge buses when smaller footprints would do.
Now they have added routes to some of the surrounding smaller towns. That will be the revenue jackpot they have been looking for!
😂
You are completely misunderstanding that reporting. Riders per revenue hour is per hour per vehicle in service. If riders per revenue hour is 14, that means the average SINGLE vehicle has 14 riders per hour while in service. 14 passengers boarded the average bus per hour. Your car? 1. But then again, I would not expect you to understand numbers or data.
Next are you going to claim empty buses don’t exist?
My car?
I’m not losing 45 minutes per trip riding around town stopping at stops to pick up ghost riders. I’m not co-mingling with other folks medical conditins that might be contagious. I”ve got more freedom to move about when I want to, where i want to. Wars consume way more energy than me filling up my SUV so, not guilty. Geesh!