If you’re still waiting for evening bus service
to start in Springfield, you might want to invest in a sturdy pair of
shoes. With the help of U.S. Sens. Richard Durbin and Barack
Obama, the Springfield Mass Transit District was awarded a $375,000 grant
last year to keep about four bus routes running past 10 p.m. for one year. Public transportation is a lifeline for area residents
— especially the disabled, the elderly, and the poor.
Springfield’s buses currently stop running at 6 p.m., which severely
limits the employment options and schedule flexibility of people who depend
on them. Almost a year after the grant was announced, SMTD is
still waiting on the money, says managing director Richard Fix. The money
should have been allocated to the Federal Transit Administration, which
specifically deals with public transportation, but was placed in the
Federal Highway Administration’s budget, Fix says. Once the grant money is freed from the bureaucratic
labyrinth that it’s stuck in right now, implementing evening
expansion could still be a ways off. Originally earmarked for capital projects, not
operational expenses, the money will be useless to SMTD unless the agency
gets special permission from the federal authorities to use the money to
pay for fuel and bus drivers’ salaries. “It’s a good sign that nobody’s said
no yet,” says Don Carlson, executive director of the Central Illinois
Organizing Project, the group that has been leading the push to see evening
bus service return to Springfield for the first time in 50 years. More money will also be needed. Fix estimates that
SMTD will need a total of $1.2 million to offer evening service. Although
the rising price of gasoline has boosted the number of people riding the
buses by 4 percent, SMTD, too, is paying more for gas — about $2.50
per gallon times 90 to 95 gallons per bus — leading to a 25-cent fare
increase that will become effective around the beginning of September. Once the check is in the bank, SMTD would have to go
through the normal grant process: The money would flow from the federal
government through the Illinois Department of Transportation before finding
its way to SMTD. “This could take six months; it could take a
year,” Fix says, depending on IDOT’s workload. “We knew from the get-go that this wasn’t
going to be simple,” says Jane Ford, a local activist and CIOP
member. Caving in response to pressure from organizations such
as CIOP, Springfield transit officials agreed in 2004 to seek funding to
expand some of its routes into the evening hours [see Todd Spivak,
“Getting on board,” Aug. 19, 2004]. To further justify the need for nighttime routes, CIOP
last fall conducted a study that revealed that other capital cities
comparable in size to Springfield already offer evening bus service. According to an IDOT spokesman, negotiations are now
underway with the Urbitran Group, a New York-based engineering consulting
firm, to determine the feasibility of offering night bus service. The study
would also identify potential funding sources, which would likely be
generated from local sources, Fix adds. Ford believes that the study is critical to getting
the project off the ground. “Without the state saying there’s a need,
it won’t happen. We need to get the Legislature to understand that
transportation money downstate isn’t just roads,” she says. For its part, the city can’t do much to help
expedite the process, either. “Short of writing a check, I’m not sure
what we could do. The budget is pretty tight this year,” says City
Hall spokesman Ernie Slottag. “We’re still trying to squeeze
out fire trucks and squad cars.”
This article appears in Jul 6-12, 2006.
