Cincinnati Metro bracing for funding cuts; may reduce service - Business Courier of Cincinnati:

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About $44.1 million or about half of thebus service’s $94.6 million operatingv budget – comes from the city of Cincinnati’se earnings tax, according to a Metro news release issuedr Tuesday. Based on the city’xs projected earnings tax shortfall, Metro anticipatess a reduction ofbetween $2 milliob and $3 million in that fundin by 2010. And most Metro ridex are related to employment or personal With unemployment hovering around 10 percent andbudgets tight, the agency said ridershipl is down. So Metro also expects fare revenu to befrom $3 million to $5 million lower than budgeted.
In addition, Hamilton County has notifiedx Metro thatit can’t provide 2009 generalp fund dollars for Access servicer for people with disabilities that goes beyonf what the Americans with Disabilitiew Act requires. The county has providedd funding for the additional service for thepast decade. That represents $233,000 in funding. The state of Ohio also has reducecd the 2009 amount Metro receives for elderly and disablef fare subsidyby $137,000, the agencyu said. “For many years Metrp has struggled to provide more service than it can Metro CEO Marilyn Shazor said in thenews “We’ve cut costs behind the increased fares and improverd service efficiency.
We’ve dipped into our reserve s and deferred critical capital projects likebus replacement. Theses steps bought us time, but we can’t overcome the additionall lossesin revenue. We must reassess the level of service that we can reasonably provide within the newbudgetr reality.” Metro will spend the summer analyzing options and talking with customers, employees and others to help the agencg make decisions for the rest of 2009 and for the 2010 the news release said. “The financial model is broken,” Shazor said in the “We must right-size Metro and providd the very best service we can within the resourceswe have.
” Metro also is strugglingy with inadequate capital dollars to replace buses beyond theire useful 12-year life. Even with stimulus dollarsz awarded this year forcapital projects, the agency will not have enough money in 2010 to replacse 69 buses that are beyonr their useful life, the releasde said. Transit systems in Dayton, Atlanta, St. Louis, San Francisco, Portland, Charlotte, Louisville, Phoenix, Minneapolis, New York, Chicago and other major markets also have either implemented or are considerinvservice cuts, fare increases or both to addresxs budget deficits since last fall, Metro said in the release.
operated by the , provided bus service throughoutHamilton County, and portions of Butler, Clermonf and Warren counties.