9/15 - Public Hearing - SMRT

I'm the fall of last year, claiming low ridership and budget woes, the La Crosse County Board voted to end the Scenic Mississippi Regional Transit (SMRT) service on the last day of 2025. The SMRT is a four-county bus service that's been providing rides from and to La Crosse, Prairie du Chien, Viroqua, and stops in between since 2012, and between La Crosse and Tomah since 2019. After a huge public outcry last winter, the board reversed course and voted to fund the bus through 2026, to give time to research alternatives.

Unfortunately, little to no research was done, including zero public involvement or input, and in July 2026, again with little notice or opportunity for public suggestions, the board voted to kill off the SMRT at the end of 2026.

In true anti-democratic fashion, the mandatory public hearing about this discontinuation is being held after the decision has been made, on Tuesday, September 15 at 4:30 p.m. at the La Crosse County Administrative Center, 7th and State.

As the United Nations publishes yet another dire warning about accelerating global heating, in large part due to the burning of fossil fuels in individuals' cars and light trucks, and as the expense of owning and driving a private car continues to rise, and the health and safety costs of car driving remain at unacceptably high numbers, the county is throwing this potent climate action/safety/family finance/pollution mitigation tool, along with the people who rely on it, under the bus.

To be sure, the system needs an overhaul. As many have noted, rider information is not easy to access (LATA created its own lit earlier this year) and routes and fares may need to be updated. Other possible changes, like redoing routes to connect with the MTU at its service perimeters in order to make the network more efficient and reduce duplication of service or seeking new partnerships and sponsorships were not, to our knowledge, examined at all.

The ridership numbers reported do not seem to line up with riders' or drivers' observations and experiences. No one has identified what they think a reasonable cost would be or what ridership levels would be acceptable. It appears that few board supervisors really understand, or have an interest in understanding, what transit in our region actually costs or what ridership ranges are normal for rural, fixed route public transit.

In our county, the Wisconsin DOT estimates up to 24,000 or more individuals age 15 and older are non-drivers, and in the four counties served by the SMRT, it's up to 42,600 people - students, workers, patients, travelers, and shoppers. Add in youth and people from outside the area, like Amish families coming to medical appointments or the Amtrak station, and the numbers are even greater.

In the U.S., transportation is the second highest household expense, even higher than the cost of food. Even those who do own cars are saddled with ever increasing fuel and maintenance costs. AAA estimates car ownership costs thousands of dollars per year more than $12,000 for a new car. All this for something that is parked for 95% of its life. Car ownership is the gatekeeper, determining where people can work, where they live, whether they can access essential services or live full lives. Public transit, like the SMRT, helps break down those barriers.

Even as it is, the "high" 2026 cost of this four-county transit service, available to almost every county resident, is

• less than $2 per resident PER YEAR,
• less than $4.50 per household PER YEAR,
• about ONE-TENTH OF ONE PERCENT of the County's 2026 budget
• less than ten percent of the county's budget for its libraries
• about eighteen percent of the cost of paving ONE MILE of road
• less than the payment made to Delta Airlines in 2025 for them to just think about adding service

If you can attend and speak at the hearing, please do. Even if you don't use the SMRT, you may know a student who uses it to get to college, a nurse who uses it to get to work at the clinic, a veteran who uses it to get to physical therapy, a family, a grandma, a group of friends going to Oktoberfest. You may believe the county should develop and use every tool it has to reduce transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions. You may understand the need to increase non-car transportation options for equity, health, and safety.

La Crosse County works with other counties on water quality, tourism, economic development, and a host of other issues. We spend county money on childcare, food and housing assistance, libraries, tourism, road maintenance, and more. But, for transportation, unless you qualify, by age or disability, for specialized, even more expensive and harder to use subsidized service, you're on your own. We don't care, I guess.

It's not right.