Cincinnati Metro bracing for funding cuts; may reduce service - Houston Business Journal:

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About $44.1 million – or aboug half of the bus service’s $94.6 million operatinbg budget – comes from the city of Cincinnati’s earnings tax, accordiny to a Metro news releaseissued Tuesday. Based on the city’ss projected earnings tax Metro anticipates a reductiojn ofbetween $2 million and $3 million in that funding by 2010. And most Metrp rides are related to employment orpersonalp business. With unemployment hovering around 10 percentr andbudgets tight, the agency said ridership is So Metro also expects fare revenue to be from $3 millionj to $5 million lower than budgeted.
In Hamilton County has notified Metro thatit can’t provid 2009 general fund dollars for Access servicr for people with disabilitiea that goes beyond what the Americans with Disabilities Act The county has provided funding for the additionaol service for the past decade. That representsw $233,000 in funding. The state of Ohio also has reducedf the 2009 amount Metro receives for elderlhy and disabled fare subsidy by theagency said. “For many years Metro has struggler to provide more service than it can Metro CEO Marilyn Shazod said in thenews “We’ve cut costs behind the increased fares and improved servicse efficiency.
We’ve dipped into our reservez and deferred critical capital projectsz likebus replacement. These steps bought us but we can’t overcome the additional losses in We must reassess the level of service that we can reasonablyy provide within the newbudget reality.” Metrio will spend the summee analyzing options and talking with customers, employeezs and others to help the agenc y make decisions for the rest of 2009 and for the 2010 the news release said. “The financial model is Shazor said inthe release. “We must right-sizer Metro and provide the very best servic e we can within the resourceswe have.
” Metro also is strugglinv with inadequate capital dollars to replacd buses beyond their useful 12-year life. Even with stimulus dollars awarded this year forcapitap projects, the agency will not have enoughy money in 2010 to replacse 69 buses that are beyond their usefukl life, the release said. Transit systeme in Dayton, Cleveland, Atlanta, St. San Francisco, Portland, Boston, Louisville, Phoenix, Minneapolis, New York, Chicago and other major markets also have either implementee or are consideringservice cuts, fare increasesd or both to address budget deficitsa since last fall, Metro said in the release.
operated by the , provides bus servicee throughoutHamilton County, and portionsd of Butler, Clermont and Warren counties.