ELKHART — Concord Township has withdrawn its financial support of the Interurban Trolley, which means routes will be adjusted in the coming months.

The mayors of Elkhart and Goshen, Dick Moore and Allan Kauffman, Osolo Township Trustee Benny Russo and Concord Township Trustee Mark Grabill and County Commissioner Frank Lucchese and Sandra Seanor, director of the Michiana Area Council of Governments, gathered at Elkhart City Hall Thursday to outline the route changes.

The trolley service is divided into five color-coded routes. Most of the changes will occur on the Green Line in Concord Township, which will be shortened due to the lack of financial support from the township. The changes will reduce the time it takes a bus to travel the route from 80 minutes to 60 minutes, according to Seanor.

“We have modernized them and smoothed them out a bit,” Seanor said of the route changes.

She said that after a public hearing and review by the MACOG policy board, the changes will begin in early April. A public comment period on the changes begin Monday.

Concord Township began a bus route in 1986, funding it on its own. That service was taken over by MACOG and expanded into the present system that serves Goshen and Elkhart and Oslo, Cleveland and Concord townships by leveraging Concord’s contribution to obtain more funds.

Concord’s contribution had been $287,000, according to Seanor. That money was then used to obtain a match of $287,000 from the state and twice that amount from the federal government.

“So that is quite the hit we take,” Seanor said.

She said MACOG has been working with other transportation agencies to secure funding to make up some of the shortfall.

“It is not going to be continual but we have been able to do a few things to keep us in a good position for the next year or two,” she said.

She said the trustees in Osolo, Cleveland and Elkhart townships have been able to make some contributions and Elkhart and Goshen have increased their contributions.

Kauffman said Goshen increased its payment from $40,000 to $62,000. Moore said Elkhart has increased its contribution from $75,000 to $100,000.

Grabill did not speak at the meeting. But last fall he was quoted in published reports as saying his township would cut its trolley contribution was being made to reduce the township’s budget

Service to campus

The changes to the routes will actually improve service to the new Ivy Tech campus on C.R. 18, just west of C.R. 17, according to Seanor. Trolley riders will be able to take their usual bus to the Concord Mall and then transfer to the Orange Line bus that will serve the campus every hour. That line will be looped back to the south and intersect U.S. 33 instead of being accessed from downtown and north Elkhart as the route is set now. The present service to the campus is just three-times daily.

Also, hours of operation will be increased. The trolley service now ends at about 5 p.m., which Seanor said is a problem for some workers. The new hours will be from 5 a.m. to about 7:30 p.m.

There will be no changes in service in Goshen, which has trolley service on a set north to south route every half hour.

The overall reduction in the bus service amounts to “about half a bus,” Seanor said. She warned though that if more funding is not found in the future more cuts in service may occur.

Seanor said ridership on the trolley system has been increasing. She said the increase was 39 percent in 2010. Total ridership amounted to 313,000 one-way trips. Each trip costs $1.

Kauffman said the funding issue has only been addressed temporarily.

“I was concerned when our City Council was asked to increase its funding,” Kauffman said. “I’ve got a pretty conservative City Council. I have a couple of new members who are a little more conservative than some that were there before. I was a little nervous about what their attitude would be. But I commend them for saying that in an urban area there has to be some sort of public transportation.”

He said the increase in funding from the township and cities is not the total solution.

“Between Elkhart and ours and the other townships, it doesn’t come near to what our loss is, so we still have issues,” Kauffman said.

He added, “This just buys us some time.”