Running on Empty

The group has blanketed the City of Knoxville, Knox County, KAT, the air quality control board, KTA and the Transportation Planning Organization with e-mails encouraging each to maintain or even expand KAT services. Herzog says bus services help not only individual riders, but the community as a whole.

“The hard part is I know most county residents don’t use the service, we're talking 12 to 15 riders per route and that’s a lot of money, but at this time particularly we need to look forward and not just try to cover our butt as far as dollars go — we need more participation from the county,” he says. “And in the larger scope, it’s our air quality control. We’re in non-attainment, which may just be a small symptom in the long run, but if we continue, the federal government would pull funding for roads and the net effect would add emission controls on everybody, which no one would be happy about. So we play the game of avoidance and cut little routes no one will notice and try to get by, but it doesn’t resolve two problems: the economic and oil crisis and downtown — people complain about road construction and road widening. Stop complaining, get off the road and get on the bus.”

McGinnis says she would also like to see additional funding for KAT services — half the budget is provided by the City of Knoxville general fund, a quarter by state and federal Department of Transportation dollars, 10 percent from fares and 15 percent is provided by funding partners, entities such as the University of Tennessee and area apartment complexes that subsidize KAT services to their area. Finding additional funding partners rather than increased city funding is KTA’s priority in the budget crunch — McGinnis says the city provides funds to “a significant extent.” The city approached the Town of Farragut and county commission about subsidizing the Farragut and Halls Express routes — Farragut agreed to contribute $20,000 of a requested $100,000 and McGinnis says the county had not yet responded to a request for funds for the Halls route.

In a phone interview July 21, 7th District commissioner R. Larry Smith said he had just left a meeting with Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale in which Ragsdale informed him the county was too financially strapped to subsidize KAT routes. Smith says the city doesn’t have the fiscal responsibility of the county-funded operation of the school system, area jails, the Knox County Health Department, the Knox County Public Libraries and indigent and orphan care, and he would like to see the city increase its support of KAT.

“What [Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam] has done is annex all these areas but does not want to provide services to the areas,” Smith says. “The [route] in Halls is a little bit past where he has annexed, we’ve offered to move the bus back inside his annexation area, but the response was, ‘I don’t have any constituents out there.’ With annexation, they go out and get the commercial sites, they’re after that, not the residential area — they get the cream of the crop. The city’s sitting there with $40 million in their fund balance and we’re asking them to help with that. The county is doing its fair share of taking care of people.” County commission candidate Amy Broyles held a press conference July 20 to support preservation and expansion of KAT services currently threatened by rising fuel prices.

Herzog says he wishes both government bodies would do more to push for a solid mass transit system. “The city and county don’t promote it, they promote Smart Trips, which is a good thing, but you don’t see anyone in leadership taking the bus, doing the right thing and encouraging citizens to carpool,” he says. “It would be nice if they would show a token of leadership on mass transit.”

Plans to increase KAT revenue also include additional advertising and raising fares, a move McGinnis says will be implemented in January following a fare study and the acquisition of updated fare equipment. Current fares are $1.25 for a one-way adult ticket and $40 for a monthly pass.

“Thursday I hope we can come to an agreement so the city can extend the service because if there was a time that citizens need cheaper transportation, it’s now in this gas and energy crisis,” Smith says.