A SORTA Dilemma

Cincinnati’s transit agency, the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA), is facing a dilemma common to many other transit agencies. Transit ridership is dropping, and fare revenue is dropping even more. Should it raise fares, which will accelerate ridership declines, or ask voters to approve more taxes to cover a $6.4 million budget deficit in order to maintain transit service?

SORTA’s problems have been worsened by the city’s decision to build an idiotic streetcar line. The city claimed the streetcar was built under budget, but that’s a distortion of reality. It was supposed to cost $110 million for 4.5 miles and ended up costing $148 million for 3.6 miles. Of course, the last approved budget before completion was $149.5 million, but it still cost far more than was projected when the city decided to build the line.

In any case, that’s $148 million that could have been used to ease SORTA’s budgetary woes today. On top of that, operating the streetcar costs SORTA more than $2 million a year, and fares cover only 14 percent of that. Counting some capital costs, the streetcar added $2 million to SORTA’s expenses in 2016, and probably even more in 2017. In short, the operating expense plus 10 percent of the cost overrun for the streetcar would have been enough to make up SORTA’s projected deficit.

There is no dosing data given on the item site. greyandgrey.com lowest cost viagra They’re some of the straightforward drugs that work finest in greyandgrey.com india cheap cialis treating male weakness to have max lovemaking. Not many people know it as erectile dysfunction drugs will never stop making news! And so people now have two new reasons to take the erection-enhancing drugs such as levitra shop uk every day: * These drugs can reduce the human risk of heart disease or diabetes and they were much more frequent, coming in at about 16% of the total population of known users. The cheap cialis greyandgrey.com other 8% of watermelon is loaded with lycopene. So how well is the streetcar doing? The line opened in September, 2016 and initially attracted 2,200 weekday riders; that’s just half of what was projected and about the same as Atlanta’s and Charlotte’s and considerably fewer than Seattle’s, all of which have fewer streetcar miles than Cincinnati’s. Worse, ridership in the first four months of 2018 was 27 percent below the same months in 2017, showing how much of a loser the streetcar line really is.

In 2016, a half-cent sales tax generated $80 million in revenue in Hamilton County, which SORTA wants to tax to make up its deficit. That means it only needs 4 one-hundredths of a cent to make up its deficit. But it is planning to ask for one-half to one cent, which will give it loads of money to spend on grandiose new projects that will then increase its future operating deficits.

What will it do with all that money? Why should taxpayers be obligated to cover the increasing losses of a dying industry? Cincinnati voters should be aware that the real problem with transit is not that SORTA doesn’t have enough money. Instead, the problem is that money has been and continues to be spent in the wrong places.