Waiting for the Bus?

With the growing number of senior citizens, persons with disabilities and low-income families, there is a definite need for a more robust transit system. So why isn't better transit service becoming available to Monroe County residents?

Transit providers, of course, are being hit with the same economic limitations facing the rest of the community. The downturn--and citizen resistance to new taxes--has severely curtailed regional services through Metro and may eroding services provided by St. Clair County Transit to Columbia at the current time. Even those services are severely limited.

Despite the ongoing work of the Monroe/Randolph Transit District, communities in Monroe County and other downstate parts of Illinois are facing a substantial shortage of funds for transit. Nothing in the economic forecasts suggest that this fact will change anytime soon.

Nevertheless, Pike County community members and area agencies met yesterday with the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs to discuss how to get the first phase of a public transit system up and running. Pike is one of twenty-four counties in downstate Illinois that have little or no public transit services.