Ohio Still Fails Public Transit Riders as Debate Begins on Next Biennial ODOT Budget

I’ve heard it often from my fellow Ohioans: “Public transit just isn’t convenient for me” or “The bus doesn’t go where I want to go or when I want to go.”

The answer to why is simple. The State of Ohio has historically and grossly underfunded public transit.

Advocates like All Aboard Ohio and our allies won a sizeable increase from the Ohio General Assembly for public transit funding in 2019 and saved that increase from being cut by the DeWine administration in the following two-year budget.

But even the rescue of $73 million a year for transit funding amounted to barely 2.5-percent of the total ODOT budget.

The State of Ohio’s own 2015 Transportation Needs Study recommended a minimum investment of 10 percent by the year 2025, which would have amounted to $185 million a year. We are far from there, still.

Who gets left standing at the bus stop? We all do, whether we ride or not. The State of Ohio still fails all of us who could or do ride public transit. How?