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- Voters Consider CATS Transit Tax
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- Tegan Wendland
Baton Rouge's bus system is in crisis. The future of the Capital Area Transit system, or "CATS," will be determined in a special tax election on Saturday. As WRKF's Tegan Wendland reports, the system is facing a $2.1 million deficit in a budget currently projected at $12.6 million. The tax revenue would not only close that gap, but totally overhaul the existing system, and if it doesn't pass? Proponents say the buses could shut down in July.
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Transcript
On a sunny weekday afternoon Kyriakus Matthews waits for the number 10 bus on Florida Boulevard and North 22nd. He explains, "It don't exactly do what you'd expect it to do, like take you wherever you want to go." Matthews takes this route every day to school at Valley Park Alternative from his home in Scotlandville, but he'd never attempt riding it out to the Mall of Louisiana, which could take hours. He says he learned the routes from his mother. He kind of had to; there aren't any routes or listings posted at any of the bus stops.
At a recent CATS board meeting Mayor President Kip Holden said there's no question over whether improvement is needed, and that will take money. Holden says, "Any time we have to go from year to year trying to figure out what we're going to do with a vital service that's badly needed by people, then it becomes a crisis."
For awhile now CATS has relied on o...
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