It doesn't take too much math to figure a big bus costs more than a smaller vehicle. The downside is the cost of the driver. On a big bus with 50 seats filled the cost of the driver goes down due to fares, except when almost none of those seats are occupied you wind up paying for a driver and the fuel to no real purpose.

As a radical idea say you had essentially a taxi driver and charged $3 a head with $2 going to the driver. If he/ she had 30 passengers in a day that would only be $60, or $90 if the whole $3 went to the driver, but how much does the bus driver make regardless of the number of riders? Way more!

If the Hammond bus system goes down having a taxi service that only serves Hammond could be profitable. As it is the Hammond buses dont leave Hammond for the most part and you can get from one side of the city to the other within 15 minutes. Somebody give me the money and I will have a go at it!! LOL

Hell voter, all you need is a van.

There's a thought! LOL

All you have to do I would assume is get the ok from the city council and viola, bus situation is solved.

Just have like 3 vans, 2 that can be on demand(for taking people to the doctor, grocery shopping, etc) and one that just drives around and hits the bus stops

Where are we on the bus issue anyway? I lost track. Is the RDA/ RBA going to take over?

With the death of Dial-a-Ride there should be something available but running empty full sized buses on a limited schedule surly can't be the way to go. If they ran later at least commuters on the NICTD could consider using the service.

Speak of the devil

http://nwi.com/articles/2009/04/02/news/lake/doc46c3e8a33c3f31308625758c00082ed2.txt

The Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority intends to go
"full speed ahead" in supporting the Regional Bus Authority, despite
proposed legislation that could put it out of business, the RDA
chairman said.

"I think No. 1, we're at the point right now where we are focused on getting the right business plan in place for the RBA," RDA Chairman Leigh Morris said Wednesday.

That includes following through on a $170,000 consultant's study now under way that would "fast-track" bus consolidation in Northwest Indiana, Morris said.

The RDA is the bus authority's main financial backer and since 2006 has approved $6.9 million in grants for the agency's efforts to consolidate region bus services. The RBA has not
yet received all that money.

The RDA chairman's comments came one day after an Indiana Senate committee approved proposed legislation to establish a four-county, supertransit agency and put the RBA and
Gary Public Transportation Corp. out of business by Jan. 1, 2010.

It also comes one day after the House author of that legislation, Rep. Chet Dobis, D-Merrillville, once again knocked the RBA as dysfunctional.

"Our RBA -- Regional Bus Authority -- today is a disaster," Dobis told the Senate Transportation Committee Tuesday. "We have absolutely no idea where they’re going."

RBA President Dennis Rittenmeyer said neither he nor other transit agency heads were consulted about the legislation. Its passage in the Senate committee Tuesday came as a
surprise, he said.

"They didn't want anyone to know because some people might have said that's not good," Rittenmeyer said. "I think what's dysfunctional is the Indiana General Assembly."

When contacted Wednesday, Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District
and Gary Public Transportation Corp. officials both said the legislation's new provisions came as a surprise to them. They said it would take some time to sift through the details.

The supertransit agency proposed in Dobis' legislation would oversee bus operations and the South Shore commuter railroad in Lake, Porter, LaPorte and St. Joseph counties.

It would be made up of elected officials from each county and a gubernatorial appointment and would
have the power to levy an income tax of up to 0.25 percent on residents of the four counties.

When asked if money spent so far on the RBA has been wasted, Morris responded unequivocally.

"Absolutely not," he said. "If it is dissolved, something else will have to take
its place. And that something else will need exactly what's being done
now."