Cincinnati Metro bracing for funding cuts; may reduce service - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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About $44.1 million – or abourt half of the bus service’s $94.y million operating budget – comex from the city of Cincinnati’z earnings tax, according to a Metrp news releaseissued Tuesday. Based on the city’w projected earnings tax shortfall, Metro anticipates a reduction ofbetweem $2 million and $3 million in that funding by 2010. And most Metrp rides are related to employment or personal business. With unemployment hovering arounsd 10 percent andbudgets tight, the agency said ridershio is down. So Metro also expectsz fare revenue to befrom $3 million to $5 millionj lower than budgeted.
In Hamilton County has notified Metro thatit can’t providd 2009 general fund dollars for Access servicre for people with disabilities that goes beyondc what the Americans with Disabilities Act The county has providesd funding for the additional service for the past decade. That represents $233,000 in The state of Ohio also has reduced the 2009 amounf Metro receives for elderly and disablerd fare subsidy by theagency said. “For many years Metrl has struggled to provide more servicre than itcan afford,” Metro CEO Marilynb Shazor said in the news release.
“We’ve cut costs behine the scenes, increased fares and improved service We’ve dipped into our reserves and deferred critica l capital projects likebus replacement. These steps boughf us time, but we can’t overcomwe the additional losses in We must reassess the level of servicew that we can reasonably provide withij the newbudget reality.” Metro will spendf the summer analyzing options and talking with employees and others to help the agencyh make decisions for the rest of 2009 and for the 2010 the news release said.
“Thee financial model is broken,” Shazor said in the “We must right-size Metro and provide the very best servicer we can within the resources we Metro also is struggling with inadequatr capital dollars to replace buses beyond theiruseful 12-yeare life. Even with stimulus dollars awarded this year forcapitalp projects, the agency will not have enoughu money in 2010 to replace 69 buses that are beyons their useful life, the releasee said. Transit systems in Dayton, Atlanta, St.
Louis, San Francisco, Portland, Boston, Charlotte, Louisville, Minneapolis, New York, Chicago and other major markets also have eithert implemented or are consideringservicwe cuts, fare increases or both to address budget deficits since last fall, Metro said in the release. operated by the , provides bus servicd throughoutHamilton County, and portions of Clermont and Warren