FAIRFIELD — Without free rides to and from work via Butler County's public bus system, Louise Eagle says, she and her two daughters could be homeless.

        The single mother's car “died” in October and she didn't have the money to buy a new transmission. So she depends on the endangered Butler County Regional Transit Authority to travel 10 miles from her apartment off Nilles Road to Smart Paper in Hamilton, where she earns $10 an hour as a collector.

        Ms. Eagle is one of about 2,000 Fairfield residents who use the struggling bus system each month. Overall, about 1,000 riders daily use the Transit Authority, but it could shut down at the end of the year if City Council doesn't vote to spend $85,000 to keep it going at their 7 p.m. meeting tonight.

        “If I don't work, we would lose everything,” Ms. Eagle, 41, said. “Me and my kids walk everywhere, but you can't walk all the way down to Hamilton to work.”

        Since her ex-husband died three years ago owing her $20,000 in back child support, Ms. Eagle has been the sole breadwinner for her family.

        “I can't pay for transportation. Otherwise, I can't raise my children. I'm scared to death the system will shut down,” she said. “It's all I can think about. If this gets canceled, I'm out of a job because I can't get to work.”

        The bus service has been hit by losses of state and federal funding. County voters in November rejected a sales tax increase to support the Transit Authority and Butler County commissioners rejected the authority's request for $250,000 in short-term funding.

        The transit system offers fixed bus routes in Hamilton, Middletown, Fairfield and Oxford and provides park-and-ride sites.

        It also has a contract with the Department of Job and Family Services to provide transportation to people moving from welfare to work.

        Hamilton City Council approved $85,000 last month to help keep the bus system going. The money is designed to give the transit authority an extra 1 1/2 months to plan, and it allows county officials more time to determine if they can provide long-term funding. County commissioners are considering allocating $1.1 million from a planned sales tax increase.

        But if Fairfield doesn't also agree to pay $85,000, the Transit Authority will begin laying off people this week, said Amy Terango, transit authority general manager. In the past three years, Fairfield has given $750,300 to the bus system.

        “We will move forward toward closure,” Ms. Terango told council members on Dec. 3.

        The Fairfield vote is expected to be a tight one — council members postponed the decision last week after Councilman Mark Scharringhausen objected to funding the bus system without a financial plan for the future.

        Councilman Sterling Uhler also delayed the measure because he wasn't sure he had enough votes to pass it.

        “The real problem is the people who depend on this service make up about 5 percent of the county's population,” said Mr. Uhler, a transit authority board member.

        “People in the richer suburbs ... don't realize the heartbreak and tragedy of people who are essentially locked in their homes because they can't get to a job or doctor or social life or anything else.”

Bus routes may still have future

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