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TARTA Task Force Set to Start Work on Reviving Transit
System
By Fletcher Word
Sojourner’s Truth Editor
Last week, the Lucas
County Commissioners announced the formation of a blue
ribbon citizens task force whose members have been asked to
confront the concerns about public transportation in the
wake of the recent cuts the Toledo Area Regional Transit
Authority has made to its services.
“This is the time to make
big things happen … with solutions, ideas and innovations,”
said Lucas County Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak as she
introduced the members of the task force. “Every community
that does well ha a strong transit system,” she added.
Lucas County Commissioner
Pete Gerken was more pointed in his remarks about the
transit issue facing local residents. “We are in a crisis –
acute and immediate – a crisis that started two Sundays
ago,” said Gerken. “TARTA isn’t working for everybody; it’s
a public transit system that is broken and maybe beyond
repair.”
Gerken noted that the task
force has been asked to accomplish three things – get the
transit system working now; find out what is next for it;
determine what might be the model for a system in the long
run that “we will all want to ride and not just a system for
the poor, the disabled and the working poor.”
The members of the task
force are: Kim Cutcher, Local Initiatives Support Corp.
executive director; Cheri Budzynski, Shumaker, Loop &
Kendrick, LLP; G. Opie Rollison, Marshall Melhorn; Rev. Otis
Gordon, Warren A.M.E. Church senior pastor and certified
public accountant; Doni Miller, Neighborhood Health
Association CEO; Angie Goodnight, Information and Community
Outreach Coordinator for Ability Center of Greater Toledo;
Michael Hampton, Getting Ahead While Getting Out; Dan
Rogers, Cherry Street Mission Ministries president and CEO;
Bruce Baumhower, president of United Auto Workers Local 12;
Sam Melden, director of Metro Region Volunteer Services for
ProMedica; Alexis Hayman-Staples, Toledo Pride/Collingwood
Arts Center executive director; Drew Williams, University of
Toledo Student Government president; Duke Wheeler, Wheeler
Farms; Joe Luzar, vice president Business Development at The
Mosser Group; Adele Jasion, accountant/owner of Gilmore
Jasion Mahler, LTD; Demetria Simpson, president and CEO of
the Lucas Metropolitan Housing Authority; Guisselle Mendoza,
president of Latino Alliance of Northwest Ohio, and Frank
Szollosi, National Wildlife Federation’s Regional Outreach
Coordinator.
TARTA’s management has
cited funding issues for its decision to reduce its services
at the start of the year – eliminating Sunday and holiday
service entirely, cutting back on some early and late
weekday routes and shutting down some routes entirely.
Much of TARTA’s funding –
46 percent – comes from local property taxes. This funding
has been greatly reduced over the years – by $6 million
between 1987 and 2010. In 2018 TARTA teamed with a local
marketing firm and a multinational engineering firm to
create a new plan that would essentially replace property
tax funding with an area sales tax. It’s a plan, noted
TARTA CEO Jim Gee, that most major cities use for funding
public transit systems.
TARTA’s proposal needed to
be placed on the ballot for approval by area voters but
trustees in Sylvania Township, alone amongst the member
communities that TARTA services, nixed the idea of letting
voters approve the plan even though polling had shown that
most voters in the township would have approved.
Commissioner Gary Byers
noted the funding issue when he spoke during last week’s
press conference. “It’s a different time for public
transportation – in Ohio only $.63 is spent per person for
public transportation.” Byers noted how little that amount
of public spending is compared to other states, such as
Illinois which spends more than $200 per person annually.
While TARTA
representatives will not be part of the task force, Skeldon
Wozniak noted that the public transit company has indicated
that it will be “cooperative and ready to assist,” she said.
“We are relying on TARTA for information and they understand
that being available is part of this process.”
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