TARC service in Louisville could see 'service reductions' to help fix financial troubles

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Financial challenges have put bumps in the road for the Transit Authority of the River City, commonly known as TARC.

"Public transportation across the country is suffering right now," said TARC's interim executive director Ozzy Gibson.

Gibson said the agency has seen the financial struggle coming.

"What saved TARC was during COVID, the federal transportation department pumped money into all public transportation. TARC was very lucky to receive about $140 million and that is what's helped keep us going," said Gibson. "That's roughly 18 to 20% of our budget."

TARC bus stop. WDRB image from April 17, 2024.

He said in the past, TARC has also relied on various grants to offset operating costs, but said now, "the well has run dry."

To help the financial strain, TARC isn't planning to get rid of any routes, but instead, its board of directors passed a budget that includes service reductions beginning Jan. 2025.

"We are at a crossroads that if we don't start making some tough decisions right now, it will get us to the point of no return and we can't have that," said Gibson.

The idea is to move to a Saturday Plus service. According to TARC, week-day schedules for 18 of its 30 bus routes would shift to Saturday-level service. That means fewer scheduled buses every hour and less frequent service Monday through Friday.

"We're hoping that will get us where we need to be in what we would consider the first round of cuts," Gibson explained.

A frequent traveler on Louisville's public transportation, Shannon Blake was waiting on a bus downtown Wednesday afternoon to get her next destination in the city.

"It works temporarily for my lifestyle because I'm trying to work to get a car," Blake said.

Said said TARC is her main form of transportation.

"We live on Dixie so it's like, we have to get two buses and it's like, so complicated," she said.

While a majority of routes would be impacted with Saturday Plus, several would remain unaffected.

Some of the busy routes that would remain the same include:

#4 -- 4th Street
#10 -- Dixie Rapid
#23 -- Broadway
#28 -- Preston Highway.

TARC said almost half of its daily boardings are on one of those four lines.

With the Saturday Plus service, there could also be possible layoffs.

"We're not sure of how many yet, we're still doing the numbers, crunching on that end. The plan is, that would take affect January 5th of 2025 and that's when a layoff would occur," Gibson said.

Things aren't finalized yet. Saturday Plus would begin in January 2025 assuming budget approval from Louisville Metro Council.

However, service for TARC 3 will remain the same under the plan.

In addition, a community-focused network redesign process called TARC 2025 will launch this summer. It will develop two proposals for what to expect in the coming years.

"They're going to actually come in and study Louisville, Kentucky and basically tell us -- they're going to talk to all stakeholders and figure out, going to give us two plans -- one plan will be, based on what all they talked about, if this is all the money you have, this is where your routes should be and the frequency. And then the second plan is what we really want which is the new and improved TARC. It'll be based on the current needs and the future needs of TARC and at that point, that's going to have a dollar amount assigned to it," said Gibson.

He said after that study, the community will have to make a choice in "which TARC they want."

According to TARC, there are also efforts to identify new sources of revenue to support transportation services.

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