09-12-18 Personnel and Finance (#8)

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Committee Chair White asked, At one (1) time, I think this last year, there were routes that were eliminated and there were some discussions that Transpo would go back and review those routes. I don't know if you've had the opportunity to do that yet. Ms. Hill stated, Our last service adjustment was back in 2012, where some routes were eliminated and some adjustments were made.That was the result of a comprehensive operational analysis that was done in 2011. Best practice is to do that every five(5)years,and it is something we are looking at doing going forward. We want to be able to look at the system as a whole,and we've also talked about partnering with MACOG in order to do that to have the regional perspective of public transportation. We see that happening within the next year to eighteen(18)months.We are always evaluating existing routes as public comment comes up,and it can be very challenging.We operate an inter-line system, so we don't have just one (1) bus operating on one (1) route. It could be coming in to the South Street station as the Route 10 line from Western Avenue and going out as the Route 7 to University Park Mall, so even making a one (1) to two (2) minute adjustment on one(1)route has a ripple effect throughout the entire system,so it needs to be looked at as a whole. We do track all of the requests that we receive for service. Committee Chair White stated, Looking at the shortfall that you will have in 2020, are you proposing any rate increases this budget? Ms. Hill stated, We are not at this time. There were some preliminary discussions to look at that for the second (2nd) half of last year, but based on feedback that we received from Mr. Davis and other Board members, that is not something we included in the 2019 budget. Even if we were to have something in next year's budget, that would have gone through the public process. At this point we don't have any plans to do that for 2019. However, looking at this shortfall, that may be something we have to look at, but again, that would involve a lot of public comment and public engagement. Councilmember Broden asked, What are your paratransit ridership levels? Ms. Hill stated, On an annual basis we do about 65,000 rides. Again, year to date, that is already up about ten percent(10%). Councilmember Broden stated, Your yellow line connector route, I know that is long and it has taken a lot of hard work, and a real exciting development for workforce. Wow on the K-12 ridership, I think that's great, getting people used to that at a young age. Ms. Hill stated,Thank you. And we're watching how that impacts our student ridership the rest of the year pretty closely. Councilmember Broden asked, What kind of numbers are you seeing? Ms. Hill answered,The free program ran through the end of August, so we don't have a lot of data yet to compare it to,but our August ridership alone was over 12,000 with kids going back to school. We've been working closely with the South Bend Community School Corporation on how we can assist with their K-12 students getting to and from school. We were overwhelmed by the success of that program. EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W Jefferson Bvld I South Bend.Indiana 46601 p574.235.922111574.235.91731110574.235.5567Iwww.southbendin.gov I 5