HAMILTON — The financially strapped Butler County Regional Transit Authority has decided to reduce its bus route service beginning Jan. 14 through June 30.

        The Transit Authority will eliminate one route, combine two routes and reduce the number of buses on two other routes.

        “With these cuts, we'll be able to get through the next fiscal year,” said Amy Terango, general manager of the transit system.

        The affected routes are the following:

        • The Five Points route in eastern Hamilton will be eliminated. That route runs from downtown Hamilton to Belmont Avenue.

        • The Eaton Avenue and Main Street routes will be combined.

        • The Middletown Express route, which runs on Ohio 4 between Hamilton and Middletown, will be reduced from two buses to one. A bus will run every two hours instead of every hour.

        • The Fairfield Express route, which connects Fairfield to Hamilton and the Tri-County Mall, will be reduced from three buses to two.

        Park-n-Ride service from Fairfield and West Chester Township to downtown Cincinnati will continue through the fiscal year, which ends June 30.

        The Transit Authority is in shaky financial condition because most of its federal funding has been phased out. Twice last year, Butler County voters rejected a quarter-cent sales tax increase for the system.

        Recent financial contributions from the cities of Hamilton, Oxford and Fairfield, West Chester Townshipand from Miami University in Hamilton have enabled the bus routes to continue.

        Without that, the bus routes would have been scrapped completely Jan. 1, and the transit system would have shut down at the end of June.

        The long-term future of the transit system's future is uncertain.

        County commissioners have earmarked $1.1 million in sales tax revenue for the Transit Authority. If a referendum effort to overturn the commissioners' recent sales tax increase is successful, that money won't be available.

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