OK, this meeting is real. And we are Interview Committee A. Today is August 13, 2026, Thursday morning.
OK, so we are doing today a couple interviews. And obviously, this is open to the public. And so we
have both of those folks in here. Great.
Got Nancy online, Kent here, Zach here. I'm Kate Rosenberger. Hope East Osborne District 3.
Jennifer Crossley, Clerk's Office. Isak Asari, Council. I'm council as well. Okay. I'm going to start
us off. Okay. So Zach, thank you for coming today. This should be quick and fun. Have you ever.
been part of a commission, council, or board that focused on the betterment and wellness of a specific
community, particularly a minority group? If so, what was your role and what impact did it have? Yeah,
so not specifically that was dedicated solely to a specific minority group, but I have been. When I
lived in Washington, DC, I was an advisory neighborhood commissioner, which is a low level local elected
official that was in a majority black neighborhood, working class majority black neighborhood. And I
had dealt with a lot of
issues related with trying to protect a community that I think was being, there was a lot of environmental
racism going on in that community with, there was a park in my district that had been, this is an insane
story, it sounds nuts, it sounds untrue, but it is, that had chemical weapons buried in it during World
War I era and that had not been taken care of. And so my entire term was dedicated to trying to get
the National Park Service, because the National Park Service runs parks in D.C., it shouldn't, but anyway,
trying to get them to take care of it.
Yeah, so that was a lot of my time was spent on that. So, again, not something that was dedicated solely
to that, but that was a big part of my, my term. Thank you. I want to acknowledge right now that this
list of questions site was for the mission on the status of black males.
So we may have to amend some things. I think that was relevant. I read it, and I think that is relevant.
But as I look through it, I was like, yeah. Wait, I could change those words. So what inspired you to
apply for a position on the board of directors? OK, so I am very passionate about sustainable transportation.
I've been in your inbox many times on sustainable transportation issues, as I'm sure you're aware.
I am worried about the state of Bloomington Transit. This year is shaping up to be the single worst
year in change in ridership and the agency's history outside of COVID. We've got right now a 13% drop
year to date. Obviously that could change before the end of the year. That's the single biggest drop
in ridership in the agency's history, at least going back to the data that I've looked at outside of
the 2020 thing, which is not entirely, that's not the agency's fault, that was just pandemic.
And I don't see a sense of urgency from many public officials yet on that. I kind of worry we're in
approaching like a death spiral in terms of losing ridership. And I worry also that we are maybe not
focusing on the essentials as much as we should, which to me is frequency, reliability, and
route optimization. Those are the three things that are the most important to me. And, yeah, sorry,
I'll talk to her. I'm a very fast talker, I'm sorry.
Frequency, reliability. And route optimization. Those are the three things I would focus on. And instead
are focusing a little bit too much, I think, on distractions, which to me is microtransit is a little
bit of a distraction. I'm skeptical of microtransit. We're only getting a handful of riders a month,
most months. We have as low as two riders per month in February of this year. That is insanely low.
And we're wasting, I think, a lot of money and time on that. I'm not opposed to microtransit as a concept,
but I am concerned we're focusing too much on things like that that are a little bit of a distraction
and should be
refocusing on reliability, frequency, and route optimization. And if I may, I went back through a whole
bunch of different documents that have been produced by Bloomington Transit, and the city, and IU even
had one of them, going back decades. And they have talked about going back all the way back to 2009,
calling for high frequency service, route optimization, cross town service, transit signal priority,
going back to decades now. And we haven't really done
and they're starting to move a little bit on signal priority, it sounds like, but a lot of we have still
have across town service. We still don't have what I consider high-frequency service. We still, and
we study after study in 2012, 2017, 2018, two in 2018, one in 2009, 2019, we've had saying, and nothing
has really happened on that. The 2019 route optimization study, which was kind of shelved after COVID
a little bit, although they did adopt some of it, called for in particular streamlining routes and,
eliminating redundancy between routes. They did do some of the eliminating redundancy, but not really
all that much. And the routes are still as circuitous and meandering as they ever were. And so we haven't
moved enough, I don't think. And instead have done things like cut late night service and sort of seed
that to Uber and Lyft and not only seed that, we're subsidizing Uber and Lyft rather than doing late
night fixed route service. Anyway, so that's a long answer to that question, but that's why.
As a as a follow up to that, is that could you talk to us a little bit about your your involvement hitherto
on with the with the board itself and and sort of what your experiences of the board? Because, yeah,
I mean, very, very noted all of the broader policy goals. And, you know, some of those sort of sit with
councils, some of those sit elsewhere. And so, you know, sort of how do you understand this
this board specifically, and talk to us a little bit about your involvement and understanding of the
board. I mean, I've watched board meetings, if that's what you're asking. Essentially, my involvement
so far is watching board meetings. But maybe more to your point is what is the role of the board? Yes.
And I watched the meeting last week, so I understand where you're coming from a little bit, what you're
looking for, Isaac.
I don't think the role of the board is to directly manage the agency or have the experience to directly
manage the agency yourself. That's the role of the management company that we've hired and the agency
staff. The role of the board is to provide independent oversight and to know what questions to ask,
when to ask them, when to push, and to know from firsthand experience from having ridden the bus regularly
when they're telling, when it sounds true and when it doesn't. And also to,
Broadly, I think the major role is to push the agency in a direction towards a philosophy that makes
sense for you. And that's why I sent that letter to you guys trying to lay out what my general philosophy,
whether I'm kind of repeating some of that here now, but that's the role of the board, at least as I
see it, to push the agency in a direction to know when to push back respectfully, to dig down into data,
and to oversee things. And I have a deep data background. It's my job as a data visualization expert
and map maker. I know data well. I can push on that sort of stuff, respectfully, obviously. So yeah.
Yeah, excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you. OK, that also then made me think, because you watch the
board meetings, which is rare unless you're in them, I think.
Do you think the board is missing any representation? If so, what do you think is missing and would
you bring skills and experience to fill in those gaps? Yeah, so I'm not gonna criticize the current
board members. That's not what I'm here to do, but I do think it could use more someone who's a regular
bus rider. I'm not sure. I obviously do not, I've not been tracking the movements of the individual
members of the board. I have no idea how they get around, but I get a feeling that
there's not many regular bus riders on the board. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's my
general feeling. And I think they need a regular bus rider on the board and I'm a regular bus rider.
So I'm well acquainted with the flaws in the current system and some of the issues that are, because
I face them when I ride the bus every day. Sometimes it takes an hour for me to get across town when
it would have taken 10 minutes on a bike or a car. And that I think is pushing people back behind the
wheels of cars. And that's because, I mean, it's a whole bunch of different things
that are causing that. But the route optimization, I think, is one of them. There's no cross town routes.
Just, I took the bus to get here today. That was not a gimmick. I do that regularly. And I took a screenshot.
Every single bus going down the whole thing was 10 to 15 minutes late, running 10 to 15 minutes late.
They were constantly running late. We only have, I think, 72% on time arrival. That's not great. I think
we could aim higher. And it's been kind of stagnating at that level for years. Other agencies aim for
80 to 90%, I think we should.
We aimed for that, I think, in the past couple of years. They had a report, but it's never really moved
up, and it's not clear why. And a bus that is always late is not a bus you can plan your life around.
So I am well acquainted with the actual day-to-day conditions of riding the bus, and I think I could
bring that to the board.
I'm just getting through it. You're fine. No worries. I keep rambling if you want me to. And now the
pace is incredible. Sorry, I was very fast. That's okay. I'm just reading. How can I rephrase that to
this situation? So I think I'm going to skip to number nine.
Okay, in terms of the possibilities for VT in terms of positive public and private partnerships and
what ideas do you have to create impactful partnerships or initiatives to address some of those challenges
that you just were talking about public trends. Yeah, public private.
solutions or partnerships. And I mean, one of the things that I know that we've talked about on council
a couple of times is that there are several different bus services in the town of different types.
in terms of IU, in terms of BT, in terms of private apartment complexes. There's lots of different pieces
of that. And of course, you mentioned Uber and Lyft as a part of the late night solution. So it's ideas
of how to create or further impactful partnerships. And I'm not at startup, I'm not opposed to all public
private partnerships, but I would lean more on the public side. I think we need to be bolder with the
agency and stop seeding ground
just private providers. I'm taking mainly Uber and Lyft when I'm talking about this. I think during
the pandemic, they stopped doing or cut back late night service substantially and sort of ceded that
ground, I think, to Uber and Lyft. And not only that, sort of subsidizing Uber and Lyft rides when I
think we should have been, I understand during the pandemic things went, everything was topsy turvy.
We need to move back in the direction we were going in.
And in fact, many of those plans that I talked about from 2009, 2018, 2017, 2012 called for expanding
late night service. And that was back when they already had the late night service at the time. And
instead we've gone the opposite direction. And not only that, our funding private competitors. I don't
think we should be doing that. As far as other like private, like apartment complex buses, I don't think
there's anything wrong with having private apartment complexes having their own shuttle service or whatever.
I don't think the transit agency has any role there necessarily.
With IU bus service, long-term, I think it would be great if we just had one transit agency in town.
But I'm not opposed to IU having their own bus service. I think it would be like decades in the future
we would do something not in the immediate term. So thanks for your question. I think it's been enough.
Okay. So following up on all of this, I mean, what is the one
uh, thing that you think is the largest issue with, um, with transit and, um, what role will you play
being on, um, on this commission, um, uh, to address it? I mean, I think they're all tied up. Um, we
have rapidly dropping ridership numbers. Why is that? I think it's cause we don't have, our routes are
in our, uh, circuitous meandering, um, and slow.
And we don't have cross town service and we don't have high frequency service and all of those things
are one thing. That is why ridership is dropping all of those things right there. And I think we need
to address all of those things. And those are not easy problems to address, but I am high enthusiasm
and high energy and focus like a laser on things. And my job on the board I think would be to push
the agency respectfully, constantly, but persistently in the direction of higher frequency, crosstown
service, route optimization, all of those things that I mentioned on increasing reliability. Which is,
I witnessed this firsthand in DC where I lived until relatively recently. I lived in Bloomington for
several years before that, was in DC 10 years, moved back. Bloomington's the only place that I loved
living. And DC, like all major cities transit agencies during the pandemic had huge losses in ridership.
They brought in a new director, Randy Clark, right after the pandemic or right around the time of the
pandemic, who turned the agency around on a dime. And it had the record fastest increase in ridership
of any major transit agency in the country. And they are back to where they were beforehand.
And it is, they did it through focusing like a laser on reliability, route optimization, and frequency
increases. I would like to see us do something similar here because I worry if we don't do that, we're
in a death spiral sort of situation. We're approaching one.
DC was, I mean, we can't do everything that DC does in a much larger city, but they redesigned their
entire bus network. For the first time in 50 years, every single bus route was redesigned, renamed,
rerouted, everything. And they've seen a giant increase in ridership since then. I'm not saying we need
to go to that extreme here, but I'd like to kind of copy a little bit of what they did in DC, the basics.
Yeah. And then on that note also, just pulling
Pulling from, again, from a thread that you mentioned early on, like, you know, Bloomington Transit,
as you mentioned, serves very different transportation needs, right, including students, workers, older
adults, people with disabilities, et cetera, people without cars, occasional riders. And so how should
the board think about balancing those different needs, like when we're making service and funding decisions?
Well, part of that's route design. You've got to design routes that are meeting all of those different,
like you've got to hit work centers and populate where people live. And I'm sorry to keep hammering
the same point, but I really do think it is that you've got to increase, if you want to get anyone to
ride the bus more, you have to have it frequent. That's the main, the underlying thing, underlying all
of the issues in the transit area. We don't have frequent enough service or buses that get you across.
You have to transfer downtown for almost every single route. That is going to affect,
seniors that's gonna affect students, that's gonna affect workers, that's gonna affect college professors,
that affects everybody. You have to have frequent, high-frequency service across the town. And I'm sorry
to keep harrying the same point, but I really do think that is the underlying issue to everything, the
problems that we're facing. Excellent, thank you. Yeah. And so how, to follow up on that, how do you
feel like as a board member, you can really institute how to change
Well, I mean, you're 1 out of 5 people, so you can't control everything, but the role is to constantly
be a constant voice for what I think needs to get us there, which is we need to redesign our routes.
We need to put funding into getting more bus drivers and getting more buses on the onlines that have
the highest ridership. And you also have to do things like
for bus stop consolidation, which is another way to increase frequency without having to increase the
budget. So that means getting rid of bus stops that are right next to each other, that are really close.
And as you get downtown, many of the bus stops are right there, very close. That's another way you can
do it without. I understand budget is a tight concern with any agency in public life in Indiana right
now. But there's ways I think you can do it without increasing the budget. So my role would be to push,
just constantly be a voice for the sort of things that I think we need to do. Yeah.
I have just one last question, if it's okay, Kate and Hopi. So this is the last year of the arrangement
through the ED Lit. I think that, I'm forgetting the number off the top of my head, but I think it's
$3.7 million that goes from ED Lit transferred to Bloomington Transit. And so I'm interested in,
sort of your views on sort of what happens next. So I think there's two interesting things happening,
right? We have sort of this actually three really interesting things. You know, we have this this hopeful
large investment in some new facilities. We have now a change in management company. And we have this
change, potential change in what happens with the ED let moving forward. And of course, I mean, council
could could address that. But
in assuming that all of those things go in the direction that they seem to be heading, does that change
the role of the board of directors here? Does it change views on priorities? Does it change to you our
policy design? Does it change at all? How do you approach as a director this new landscape in the year
ahead? Where do we find funding in a tight landscape is essentially what you're asking.
I mean, I think you do it through things like I just was talking about. You find creative ways to reduce
costs while simultaneously being able to increase frequency, which I think I think one of the examples
I gave was bus stop consolidation. You consolidate bus stops that can speed things up without raising
costs. I think the costs associated with the new facility are ballooning a little bit more so than I
am comfortable with, and I'm not entirely sure why.
be a voice for trying to tighten that up a little bit, because I think I'd rather that money go directly
into increasing frequency rather than going into a large facility. Maybe it's needed, I have no idea,
but I'm worried about how much money we're spending on things like that. I also think there's potentially
untapped sources of funding locally. I don't see my role right now to be able to give you an answer
of every single untapped source of funding that's available. I could look into that if I were appointed,
and I have the background to be able to do that. But one area that I think is good
I think we should raise parking rates. That's something that would be on city council to do. And some
of that money, if not all of it, should go into public transit, I think. And that's another source of
funding that we can find outside of the traditional sources. And I think there's potentially other places
we can look for funding like that that haven't been tapped yet to try to help raise funds in that tight
budget. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Is there anything else you would like us to know?
I don't think so. I think my general philosophy, I think it's pretty clear. I laid it out in that letter
I sent you to just my background is in data and driving into numbers and details and mapping. I think
I bring a unique perspective to the board that not many other people can bring that I can actually dig
down into the data itself and check the numbers and map stuff myself. Not that that's entirely the role
of the board, but that's a unique perspective that not many other board members I think can bring.
So that's one thing I think that makes me a good candidate. So. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.
Do you have anything else? All good. Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much.
you know I'm part of the job well it's part of the job and I I sometimes rather enjoy it because members
of the public just have to sit there while we talk at that yeah I think it's only fair yeah yeah all
right well leave you guys to it thank you very much thank you so much what do you like to stay put right
here and that's excellent button over there oh you can see better right yep great well I need a minute
same here I uh I'm gonna get my
Where is my question? Good for me to get out and move. Is there an S on the end of your name, McDaniel?
McDaniel. I believe on the screen there's a Nancy.
Suspect that's Nancy. Yes, our board. Over over my other interested. It's not usually. Are you okay?
Are you all okay? I start. Yeah, I'm quite done. Yeah.
My apologies for selling you 10. When we talked on the phone, we said 10.30, and so I didn't, I flubbed
up and sent you 10. So my apologies. Just need to get the questions out of here. That guy sure talked
fast. Some people can talk so fast. I do sometimes too, but not- Yeah, I was about to say.
I know that I talk fast at times. Jennifer, who exactly do you work for? Do you work for the council?
The city clerk. That's me. She has an alter ego that you can find in other places. I was watching her
alter ego this morning. That was actually one of the things that I did this morning. Yeah, we can talk
about that later.
Yeah, we sure can. Yeah, yeah, we can and should. And I'm just copying and pasting questions. I know,
I'm trying to, I'm doing that kind of similar, but you two are in very, also different positions. Yes,
you guys are very, so first I'm copying and pasting and then I need to go back and it would be ideal,
of course, if this sort of thing was done prior to our actual meeting, but, um,
Isaac, are you basically ready whenever we're ready? Yes, ma'am. It's one of those days where I have
so much to do, I just want to cry, you know? Sorry, it's OK, but it'll be good when it's seven.
We'll be fine. Most things are fine.
I mean, it's still 1026 technically.
Good enough. Yeah, I think so. Who wants to start with number one, which involves a slight reframing
of questions? I'll do it again. And I think it's still a good question. Oh, yeah. Thank you for being
here, Kent. First question, while you are part of this board, have you been a part of a board or commission
or council that focused on the betterment and wellness of a specific
community, particularly a minority group. If so, what was your role and what impacted you? Many years
ago, before I was on the board of BT, I was on the traffic commission, but only for about two years.
And then in 1990, I was appointed to the board at Bloomington Transit. So I had nine terms there,
36 years. And my whole career, professional career has been
public transportation. I studied it in college as a grad student. I drove a campus bus to work my way
through grad school. Then I went to work for IU and became the executive director of transportation
services, which oversaw a campus bus and motor pool and parking operations. And we also ran an extensive
training program that got more
people here to Bloomington from transit management companies all over the country than any other university.
And then my role on BT has varied, usually just a board member, but I've been the vice chair for the
last few years. And we don't specifically serve minority groups, but a lot of our riders are minorities.
particularly in the lower income groups. So that's pretty much the extent of my career in that specific
area. Thank you. Thank you. As a follow up to that, how have you seen public transportation change during
your career and tenure? So during your career, but also specifically over the last 36 years of your
position on the support.
Yeah, before I was on the board, we were the Institute for Transportation, which was part of the business
school. I became the administrative director there. We were very much involved with Bloomington Transit.
We did a study between Bloomington Transit and IU on behalf of the state to talk about merging
the organizations. But we've been talking about that for decades. It's never happened, obviously.
Although we've made a lot of progress, we operate out of a joint facility. IU actually owns the land,
and then we jointly own the building. Actually, no, BT owns the building. And that agreement runs for
another 11 years before it expires. There's, of course, an opportunity to extend it, but that's
I think created a sense of urgency for some people to explore this profile parkway purchase that was
recently done to build a new facility. So it's changed a lot. When I was first paying attention, DT
ran a few of these Mercedes Benz buses that had wooden seats, and it evolved over time to become a public
transportation corporation.
in 1982, and there are eight PTCs in the state. We're the last one that was created, so they don't do
it anymore. The advantage to that was it gives you some access to property tax authority, which gave
BT a stable funding base that allowed them to start purchasing better equipment and then use that equipment
to expand services and try and do a better job than they could with those old Mercedes Benz buses.
Another thing that happened over that period was we used the funding to build the joint facility that
we had. We also started a lobbying effort to go out and get more capital money. There were discretionary
grants available in those days. There are not as many anymore, but we were able to use that to replace
The fleet at Bloomington Transit and IU also got involved. They bought 27 new GM buses with money that
we got through lobbying efforts. And another thing I did was I was the executive director of the Indiana
Transportation Association, which was a lobbying group that went out to get money. So I was running
to Indianapolis all the time. I was registered lobbyist, went to Washington DC and spoke to our congressmen
and our senators
And the ITA was instrumental in doing a lot to bring money into Bloomington in particular and the rest
of the state as well. So I've seen it grow and evolve. And of course, now there's additional growth
in other areas like our association with Uber and Lyft and microtransit. I'm not really a big fan of
microtransit either.
Very efficient. If you want to be efficient, you've only got a limited amount of money. You want to
put the buses on the street where they can attract the greatest concentration of ridership. And you
want to put it out there when people are there. There are a lot of misconceptions about we shouldn't
drive such big buses because in the middle of the day you have smaller ridership. But you can't just
switch buses all day long.
And the biggest, the most important part, the most extensive part of your budget is labor. Labor and
fringe benefits, about 70% of all your expenses go into that. So I've seen a lot of change over time
in the amount of effort that goes into it and the money that goes into it and bigger and better equipment.
And we've done a lot to look into
of things like studying route efficiency and what Zach calls route optimization. We had an optimization
study and we're still working up. We make adjustments every year. Most of those adjustments are in August.
So there'll be some more coming in August. And the reason for that is about 70% of our ridership is
based on Indiana University and students. So when they're gone in the summer, ridership plummets.
And then when they come back, it starts to rise again. Another big change I've seen lately is the loss
of ridership. And a lot of that was due to the pandemic and changing work style. A lot of people each
work four days a week instead of five, or they don't go to the office and they don't need ridership
or they don't need as much service. Excuse me.
So that's kind of a roundabout way of answering that. Well, there's a lot of information in there.
Thank you. I hope it helps. It's so helpful. Thank you. I'm curious about, so you've been on the board
for so long, and thank you for your service. Why reapply? Why do you want to remain on the board? What
remains to be done?
I'm committed to public transportation. That's been my entire working career. And I've spent so much
time working with BT that I have a real fondness for it. And I feel responsible for it. So I don't want
to just walk away. I always worry about if I leave, then who's going to come in and take over? So there
are a few board members right now that I wish would leave.
I've decided maybe this is a good time to bring this up. I'm really upset with some things that have
happened at Bloomington Transit lately. We had a huge fight over the purchase of this property at a
profile parkway for the new facility. And one of the things I'm worried about there is I don't, in this
current federal environment, I don't see how we're ever going to get the money to finish that.
It is a good investment, nevertheless. If we can't get the money to build a facility, we still have
the land and we can sell it and do other things with it. So that's going to take a few years to resolve.
But I think I can see a lot of changes in the next four years. We're also transitioning to an electric
fleet. I'd like to see that continue, although those electric buses are a lot more expensive than the
diesel buses.
So I feel committed to it. I want to stay with it. I mentioned that we had a huge fight over the property
purchase, although eventually it passed by to nothing. And I made the motion to approve the resolution
to agree to the purchase. And then we fought over it for an hour before the rest of the board members
went along.
And then we had a couple of executive sessions to talk about the new management contract. And our chairman,
Jim McCleary, wouldn't let me have a copy of the proposals. So we went to the first meeting,
first discussion. And the first thing I said was, I can't talk about this because I hadn't seen the
proposals. So I pitched a bit and eventually got the copies.
Then we had another executive session. Then they came back and said that they were recommending we dump
our current management company, RITP DEV, and hire this new company. And I told them I'm absolutely
opposed to that because I think John Connell has done a great job. And so has RITP DEV. So we fought
over that for a while. Then Jim said, he announced that he expected, he said the committee was unanimous.
I expect the board to also be unanimous.
I said, that's not going to happen. So we fought over that for a while. They passed the resolution three
to two, excuse me, the resolution to sign a contract with this new company. And then we went to the
board meeting and voted on it. And they voted on the resolution to pass. We haven't signed a contract
yet. We have to do that at our next board meeting.
And I got up and left. I said, I've been here 36 years. This is the biggest mistake I've seen yet. And
so I told him, I am seriously considering withdrawing my application to reapply. The thing that changed
my mind after that, I went back and I was about one day away from coming back and to talk to you to
say, yeah, pull the plug. I don't want to be reapplied.
RITP-DEV signed a protest letter regarding the process of selecting a new management company. And in
my 36 years here, that's the first time we've ever had a protest. And I looked at it. I read the letter.
It's four pages long. And I agreed with so much of what they said.
I think you guys ought to see a copy of that if you're serious about this. Anyway, that encouraged me
to wait and see. The way it works is my term has expired. I was up to July 31st. But I get 90 days where
I still am on the board. And I thought, well, I'll write it out and see what happens. We have a board
meeting next Tuesday to approve the new contract.
I'm still feeling that, and I want to be totally honest with you on this, I can't work with Jim and
Doug Korn and Don Griffin if they insist on taking this new path and hiring a different company and
getting rid of our general manager. If they do, I'll quit. So you need to know that right ahead of time. Yeah.
Thank you so much. This is so helpful. Thank you. You're welcome. This is really helpful. I'm just looking
at questions we asked earlier. I think in that same vein, a lot of changes are coming or not. Isak asked
last time, with the ED lit funding leaving the $3.7 million, what happens next? Does it change the role
of the directors and the priorities? Well, the money that
We've been getting that 3.7 million, excuse me, the lit mine. Sorry. We've been basically stockpiling
that for the construction of the new facility. Because regardless of how expensive it is, it's going
to take a lot of local money. The money is also available to use for the green line, which runs across there.
east and west, we look at what they call bus rapid transit service there. And that's very expensive.
But there's a lot of things we can do with improving stops and signal prioritization, which is in our
next budget, to improve the flow of traffic through there for buses and to provide much better east-west
service that way. So we can use that money for that.
If we don't get the money from the facility, then we'll be able to do a lot of other good things with
it. This is one that I asked Zach before. I'm going to reframe it a little bit. It's the question about
impactable private and public partnerships that you referenced already.
Having looked into that for numerous years in terms of between IU and BT, I guess I'm interested in
your views on the future of that potential consolidation, whether or not it can happen, whether or not
it would be good for Bloomington as a community, for the organizations, and whether there are other
potential partnerships out there. Feel free to
to kind of play around just with that concept of partnerships. I think it would be good for the community.
I mentioned earlier, I was the executive director of the Indiana Transportation Association, well,
excuse me, of Indiana University. And in that role, I was often involved in discussions between Bloomington
Transit and IU as far as merging the systems. I used to recuse myself when they'd start to talk about
it at the board meeting, I'd get up
and leave. And then the chairman, Ray McConaughey, in those days said, no, don't stay. We want your
input. And what I observed back then was IU was very reluctant to give up control. That was very important
to them. They also didn't trust the city council to look after the needs of their students. They thought
they were better suited to do that. In those days, there was a big, big difference
But we get our state funding BT from the Public Mass Transportation Fund, EMTF. And that used to be
a performance-based system. And so I ran the numbers and figured out that if IU and BT merged and they
put all their service together and all their statistics as one, they could bring in $2 million a year
more than they were at the same time.
a zero sum game that we would have angered everybody in the state because we were taking money away
from them. At that point, the funds had grown to like $42 million a year. And BT has already taken 2.8
or something like that. If they had gotten the additional $2 million, we would have been killing everybody
except probably Indianapolis.
And people were upset about that, just the thought of it made them angry. So I think that IU was very
reluctant to go into that because they get a lot more money from the state for other things. And if
they made all the legislators mad, they thought they'd suffer. So that was a big difference. As far
as the public private, now there's a difference. Now I think IU is losing interest in campus bus.
From what I've seen, I've been retired for 10 years, so I don't have my finger on the pulse anymore.
But I think they're much more likely to consider that now than they were in those days. They've cut
back service too, so they've dealt with a smaller amount of service. So there's a chance that I know
John Collins has met with them many times, and I've been involved in some of those meetings. And he
continues to keep them
appraised of what we're doing. Not sure that this new facility, if it ever is open, is going to be attracted
to IU. So we'll just have to see what happens there. As far as public-private, I have not been a big
fan of Uber and Lyft services or microtransit, although it's a
something that Jim McClary, the chairman, really likes. He's pushing hard for that. It's inherently
less efficient because you usually get like one passenger and one driver. And so it's kind of like a
taxi service. So I'm going to be thrilled with that. As far as other public-private arrangements, I'm
not sure if you're familiar with this, but we have an extensive program of providing service to
apartment complexes. And when they have a lot of IU students there, they're willing to pay BT a lot
of money to provide more intense service for the apartment complex. In fact, I'm pretty sure at our
budget hearing that we just had a couple months ago, I think they said that we're bringing in over a
million dollars a year from apartments just to fund that additional service. So
I'm a big fan of the public private sector. I just think we need to do it in the most efficient way
we can. And I'm not so sure this Uber and Lyft stuff is that efficient. Thank you.
Could you talk a little bit about and again same same question and that we asked it you got the benefit
of hearing these questions, then we'll ask them again but the we were talking about how Bloomington
transit serves.
you know, a lot of different people with very different transportation needs. And so could you speak
a little bit about how you think the board should balance those different needs when making service
and funding decisions? And then similarly, I'd love your assessment on whether you think that we currently
are meeting those needs well. And I think that that's at least orthogonal, but it does intersect with
with this question about how we're doing microtransit as one example. So we would love to hear your
thoughts on how are we serving all of the different needs or how do we need to be serving the different
needs of a variety of different users? Well, I'm glad you brought that back up because I don't want
to leave you with the impression that I'm totally opposed to microtransit. It does help sort of a group
fixed route buses. So that helps. Part of what we do at BT is actually required by the federal government.
We're required to provide disabled service through our access, BT access. So we do that. And I think
we probably have done more than is required by the federal government.
So we really don't have a choice other than to do that. Our choice is how much of this door-to-door
microtransit service do we want to provide? And that is something that I feel like we should continue
to do. But I'm just concerned that we don't go overboard. I hope that answers your question.
And and and I'm also just thinking about, you know, what else would you have? What else would you have
us do like like, you know, so because because I it's it's well received and I get I get this tension
and this is actually what I'm trying to triangulate around that the way that we're doing micro transit,
for example, isn't isn't perfect. However, it's it's.
it's addressing a necessary need. So what do we do? How do we do this better? Because I also hear very
clearly the critique of we're not particularly happy with Uber. The ridership in microtransit has been
low. So I'm just trying to walk through that tension of what's the appropriate action for us to be taking
in this space. I'm not positive what the solution is to that. I can tell you that
What some systems have done, and in fact, John Connell, our manager, was at Lafayette for something
like 12 years or more. And when he was up there, they brought all the microtransit type service in-house.
So they had their own drivers instead of hiring Uber or Lyft. And that worked pretty well for them.
One of the reasons that I think BT has hesitated to do that is we're having fits just trying to hire
enough drivers to run our fixed route buses. Last I saw, we were still seven down from what we prefer
to have on a full-time basis. And that puts a lot of stress on the other drivers because they have to
work overtime. And having read, I hope we don't
miss runs, but that's a possibility if you can't bill them. And that's really bad for customer relations.
So that's a possibility, but until we can get higher people to go through, we had signing bonuses, we've
had job fairs. We've actually been in a lot worse shape in the past. I think we got it down to five
drivers a little while ago, and then we lost a couple more.
It's hard to retain drivers when they have to run these late night shifts. They just don't want to do
that. Not very many of them, some like it, but most of them don't. They prefer to have like an eight
to five kind of a job. And in the transit business, you don't get that very often. So the answer, Isaac,
is I don't really know the solution. Right, OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a really helpful thing.
I want to ask a question I asked that too. Do you think the board is missing any representation
or perspective? If so, what is that? He made the point, you know, you need a writer on the board. That's
I've heard that many, many times. Most of our board members drive their cars to the board meetings.
I know Nancy, I believe she's online.
She rides the bus fairly often. I don't ride it very often myself. It's from where I live to BK and
back. It would be a long trip. So I get in my car and I drive. So that is, you know, to have a frequent
rider on the board would be an asset. Another thing that I've often heard as they complain about boards is,
The fact that we don't have a disabled person on the board, although I might be able to fix that. I've
got two bad knees and I have a cane and a walker in the car. I parked out in the lot here. So I don't
yet use access, but that's another possible aspect. It's good.
And then, you know, there's another possibility here that we don't really discuss very often, is BT
has five board members. According to state law, we could have seven, but we'd have to go back and change
the city ordinance. And I don't think that would be too difficult, you know, if the council wanted to
do that. And then you could add people to the board.
And then I wouldn't have to listen to those same three people all the time that I'm upset with. So would
you generally be supportive of having this? Like as somebody who served on this board for 36 years,
and one of the challenges, of course, with boards and commissions is getting participation and quorum
and attendance and all of those pieces of things, which is always a consideration from the council level
when we think about expanding board membership. So from your experience over the last 36 years,
Do you think that the board should potentially be expanded to 7 members? And if so, do you think that
there would be those challenges related to quorum attendance? All of those pieces. That's a very real
possibility. We've been pretty good. It's rare that we can't get a quorum. But we only need 3.
If we expanded the board, and this is another thing that came up when we were talking to IU, that we
could expand the board, put somebody from IU on the board to give them more say in how we provided service
to campus. But this never panned out. And I think, Hopi, I think that you've made an excellent point.
It could be a problem. You'd have to get the right people on the board, people that were dedicated.
Thank you. We do have an option for, you know, attending by zoom, but that's limited. You can't vote
on a budget if you're on zoom and you can't miss more than two meetings in a row. You suck. Anything
else you want to ask? No, no, very thorough answers. Thank you.
Um, I think I have, I think I have one more that we talked about before, um, with Zach, um, and you
may be like danced around it, but maybe you didn't directly state it. And so the question is, what is
like the largest problem that you see with transit in Bloomington and how do you work to change that
as a board member now? How do you want to continue? I mean, you talked about wanting to continue. So.
What do you want to do in the future to continue or start working toward that? Well, as far as long-term
problems, a long-term, consistent base of funding, we've got some now. But if we want to continue to
grow and expand, we're going to ultimately need more. Another thing is hiring and retaining drivers.
It's just really hard to get enough to keep things running.
And there was another thing on the tip of my tongue. Well, those are the two biggest ones. Okay.
And so, like you mentioned earlier in the interview about different how, like,
under the question how things have changed, and you mentioned how some funding things have changed.
And so in terms of that experience, you know, needing a consistent base of funding, are there places
that you think that can be looked toward in the future to create that consistent funding? That's a challenge,
and it's one we've been fighting for decades. Zach mentioned, you know, parking revenue.
That'd be great for public transit, but we'd make a lot of people very angry who are benefiting from
that money right now. I'm not sure that's the fight we'd want to pick. We've pretty much exhausted the
state sources of funding and the federal sources. So until Congress gets its act together and decides
that they want to support public transportation, or until we get a new general assembly that puts
public transportation as a priority. Although I don't believe I mentioned this. I was talking about
the PMTF and how we could have gotten more from it when it was a performance-based formula. It's no
longer based on performance. They cut that out years ago and they froze the fund. So now BT does pretty
well because we were doing very well when the PMTF grew to $42 million. I think it's now 44. So that's not it.
a possibility anymore. There are just limited resources out there. Unless we have a new source of funding
approved by the city or the county or the state, I don't think we can count on the feds. We need to
just make sure we're as efficient as we can be.
Okay, and then what about hiring drivers, which I know has been an issue for MCCSE as well? We're constantly
trying. We bring them in, we train them, we drug test them, and then sometimes after you go through
that whole process, then they drop out. And, you know, you finally start to make some progress like
we were for a while, and then all of a sudden
Somebody leaves. They get a better opportunity somewhere to get their public passenger chauffeur's license.
And then maybe it'll go to a truck company. We have that problem with mechanics, too. You get somebody
who's a, of course, it used to be diesel mechanics. Then they'd run off to the truck companies once
they got suitably trained. But now, with these new electric buses, we've got to train them all.
We get the manufacturers of the buses to help us with that. But there's a problem in that, too, that
the Trump administration has basically killed the electric discretionary bus program. They don't want
electric buses anymore. So the manufacturers are already starting to cut back on parts and equipment.
And it's going to get more expensive. It's going to get harder to buy new buses.
We may have to adjust our goals again. Instead of electric buses, maybe we'll have to go back to clean
diesel. Great. And on that depressing note, sorry. Sorry. Is there anything else you want to share with
us? No, I was wondering when I get that thing in about whether I want to continue to say,
But I did get that in. We have a board meeting next Tuesday, and that's when they'll vote on the contract.
There is a process going, but I don't understand the process because I've never been through it. I think
that part of the process includes getting the general manager, not the general manager,
the board chair to appoint a committee to review the protest. I'm pretty sure what Jim's gonna do is
appoint himself and the two disgruntled employees that were the problem on the first committee. And
if that's the case and the protest doesn't go anywhere, then I'll go. Yeah, that's understandable.
I'd just like to say there were two public comments written here by Nick Ira. And the first one was
about Zach said that they loved the idea of a bus rider giving perspective. And then the second one
was during this interview, they said this kind of generational knowledge is beyond valuable, it's priceless.
So I just wanted to make sure that we shared both of those comments as well. Thank you so much, Nick.
Thank you. Okay, and I think we can be adjourned, right? No. What? Well, I want to make sure that we
review our steps before we adjourn at the official meeting. But we can adjourn tomorrow. Yes, so thank
you so much. I think so. Thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you very welcome. Thank you for
the years of service that you have spent to BT, regardless of what happens after this.
think that what you've given to the community through your service has been invaluable. Yeah, yes, I
think that I've learned thanks for this interview too that were very interesting. Thank you. Of course,
nice to meet you. Thank you so much. Okay. I have to get going, so. Yeah. We have a meeting tomorrow
and there's another meeting this year. I love it. Okay.
I was part of that 1130 and I got canceled. That was in here. Okay. So I'll see you. I'll see you tomorrow.
I'll be in person and cause Kate, you're going to be remote. Okay. And that's at 10 30, but I'll send
a follow up reminder for everybody. Um, as well. And it's just one tomorrow. Is that right? Yep. Awesome.
All right. See you guys tomorrow. Um, and thank you. Now you have to address before you leave. Can I
have those?