Citing a need to cut "inefficient, low performing" routes amid a "challenging budget climate," TARC announced Thursday it is eliminating over a dozen bus routes around the Louisville area, including the free LouLift circulators and various express routes.
The changes take effect Aug. 9.
The discontinued routes include the LouLift circulators (routes 1 and 77) as well as Route 62 (Breckinridge - Shepherdsville), Route 82 (New Albany - Jeffersonville) and Route 96 (U of L Health Campus Circulator).
TARC also said in a Thursday news release that express routes 45X, 49X, 53X, 54X, 64X, 65X, 66X, 67X, 68X and 78X will cease to operate.
"Minor schedule adjustments" will also take effect for routes 6, 10, 15, 18, 23, 28, 31 and 61X, according to TARC, with additional specifics not immediately available.
The Transit Authority of River City, which operated 43 routes in five counties around the Louisville metro area until the latest cuts, had first proposed cutting various routes in April.
TARC said it held public meetings regarding the proposed changes over the past few weeks, and comments from the public were taken into consideration.
Issues of efficiency and paying for low-ridership routes existed prior to the coronavirus pandemic, which has further hurt the transit agency's ridership, TARC officials have said.
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“Half of TARC’s current routes are used by only 3% of its riders — a fact that existed prior to the current COVID-19 pandemic,” said TARC Co-Executive Director Margaret Handmaker in a statement. “With almost half of our routes being little used by the community, these changes will help TARC invest where its passengers are."
Handmaker's fellow co-director, Laura Douglas, added that in "some parts of our community, TARC's cost per rider is approximately $2.50; on other, less-frequently used routes, it nears $60 per rider."
"When TARC charges just $1.75 per trip, this is unsustainable and drains resources from where they are needed most," Douglas said in a statement. "TARC does not want to merely move people around; we want a high level of service."
Apart from cutting express routes that travel along busy corridors in places like Jeffersontown, Middletown, Fern Creek, Bullitt County and Southern Indiana, TARC is ending the all-electric LouLift buses.
The free service was unveiled as "ZeroBus" in 2014 before TARC rebranded it as LouLift in 2018.
The LouLift circulators were meant to appeal to city dwellers and tourists without cars, taking riders between downtown and places like NuLu and Churchill Downs.
TARC said it will "continue monitoring ridership and any potential impact due to these changes on all TARC customers — with a strong focus on our minority and low income passengers," and the agency said it will "determine if additional mitigation measures are needed going forward."
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Reach Billy Kobin at bkobin@courierjournal.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/subscribe.
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