Monday, February 02, 2015

Fishers Dumps Commuter Bus Subsidy

In December, the City of Carmel ended the luxury express daily bus service from Carmel to downtown Indianapolis due to low ridership. Now the City of Fishers is following suit and ending its daily bus service to downtown Indianapolis. The commuter express service requires a minimum of 116 riders a day to break even. According to WTHR, the express service has seen a steady decline in ridership since June of last year. Lower gas prices are attributed as the cause of declining ridership. Nonetheless, regional transportation folks are pushing ahead with their plan to invest billions in a regional, metropolitan transit system that will run express bus lines into suburban areas outside Marion County.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:11 PM EST

    All self-proclaimed "activists" just want a project that puts them to work, makes them appear important and lets them take a substantial salary from the project.

    They don't give a darn what the project is; they just want a lot of public money spent so they can take a cut and get rich off the taxpayer.

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  2. John Accetturo4:56 PM EST

    The people of Fishers and Carmel have spoken. They don't want to use mass transit. Hamilton County elected officials hearing must be worst than mine. No Demand, No Need, No New Taxes.

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  3. Anonymous10:57 PM EST

    The Carmel and Fishers routes had been heavily subsidized for some time now. It was a nice experiment to see if a large scale expansion to a regional bus rapid transit system would be utilized. We learned that would not be the case.

    The general population is not going to give up their cars until driving is many times more expensive than it is today, or when city streets and highways no longer have capacity to make driving a reliable and timely means to get somewhere. Large cities with dense urban centers have a little of both - think Chicago, New York, London, Paris - and that is why their transit systems are so heavily used. Indy and its suburbs are too spread out and driving is too inexpensive. Maybe some day decades in the future that will change but for now that's the way it is.

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  4. Anonymous7:01 AM EST

    Wait a minute! -If there are no luxury buses then there is a void that must be filled.

    Hmmm, how about LIGHT RAIL? -We're no Chicago or NYC, but our government elected officials want to TAX AND SPEND into oblivion. I'm sure they'll say "We need IndyConnect".

    Since nobody uses the luxury buses, they'll need trains!

    I'm sure they need a "Meadows Connection" or "Haughville Hook-Up" to get to the rap music concerts to be held in Carmel's Paladium! They'll also need SHOPliftING rides to Hamilton Town Center in Noblesville, where the young folks can engage in shoot-outs like those at Castleton Square! "INDIANAPOLIS - Castleton Square Mall closed early Saturday after a fight broke out inside, reportedly involving hundreds of people.

    Hundreds of teens had gathered outside the mall after a handful of fights broke out inside earlier, prompting an evacuation."

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