NKU students and Northern Kentucky residents who rely on public transit could soon see changes to their daily commute. The Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky (TANK) is rolling out a new transit development plan aimed at modernizing bus routes, expanding on-demand services, and improving efficiency across the region. TANK says it is rethinking how people move around Northern Kentucky as they face declining ridership, funding constraints and shifting travel habits. 

“Our community doesn’t look like it did even just 10 years ago,” said TANK General Manager, Gina Douthat, during a virtual public meeting on the transit plan. “Work patterns have shifted. Jobs have moved out of downtown and into the suburbs, and people that used to rely on transit no longer even live in the urban core. Transit isn’t just an option for those people, it’s a lifeline.”

Going into the plan, TANK is making changes based on what the community needs now. Their goals are to ensure their services are affordable and serve the needs of transit-dependent people. This includes getting people to jobs, schools, and medical appointments efficiently. However, this is not a transit service expansion plan; it’s a plan to provide more stability in order for TANK to continue operating under expected funding levels of the transit-dependent people in the community.  

 “We’ll do our very best to design a transit system that is sustainable and worthy of the people who rely on it,” said Douthat during the meeting. 

 With these plans in mind, TANK and its consultants have drafted three potential scenarios for public feedback, each exploring a different approach to service. 

Scenario 1: Frequency Focus would increase 15-minute service along major routes between Newport, Covington and downtown Cincinnati while expanding TANK Plus in urban areas. Lower-ridership express routes could be eliminated.   

Scenario 2: Micro transit Focus prioritizes flexible, app-based TANK Plus service, replacing some fixed routes with on-demand options, particularly for late-night travel. 

Scenario 3: Regional Focus shifts attention away from downtown Cincinnati toward neighborhood routes centered on the Covington Transit Center. 

TANK officials said they do not plan to adopt any single scenario but instead will combine the most supported elements into a final plan. 

“Each one of these alternatives represents a trade-off. There’s no ideal solution right here. And I want to be clear that we’re not picking one alternative versus another, but instead, we’re going to be looking at what people have to say about each alternative, as well as what some of the route level changes are there that people really like, or that they don’t like,” said Thomas Whitman,  a specialist in transit operations and capital planning, from Nelson\Nygaard, a global transportation planning/ design firm that develops sustainable, equitable, and accessible community mobility solutions.”

“We’re ultimately looking at hopefully taking bits and pieces of some of the alternatives and developing something that best meets the need from a mobility perspective, as well as from an outreach perspective,” Whitman added.

For Northern Kentucky University riders, the Route 25 line, which connects campus to Newport and downtown Cincinnati, will not see any major changes. It will continue along Alexandria Pike, serving as NKU’s main link to surrounding cities. 

However, one familiar service, the Southbank Shuttle, could be discontinued. TANK officials said the route no longer attracts enough riders to keep operating at its high cost. 

“It is a very resource-intensive route, and ridership-wise. We don’t get a lot of bang for our buck,” said Olivia Tussey, TANK’s Senior Transit Planner. “By removing the Southbank Shuttle, we can extend Route 25 through Covington and make other improvements. The positives will outweigh the negatives.” 

TANK Plus—the agency’s on-demand micro transit option— works like a ride share. You book it on your phone, and a smaller vehicle picks you up within a set zone, similar to an Uber or Lyft. The service currently operates in Newport and Covington, and is expected to expand to Bellevue, Dayton, and Florence.  

NKU forensic science student, Belle Robbins, relies on the TANK’s Route 25, to travel between her dorm, work and classes.

“I ride every day,” said Robbins. “I only take the NKU shuttle.”

NKU students will continue to ride TANK for free using their All Card, a partnership that encourages students to use public transit for commuting and local travel. 

TANK’s partnership with NKU is convenient and dependable for students like Robbins. 

“I would say it’s definitely easy to use and it’s definitely reliable to use. You just have to time yourself right. It’s also nice that I get to ride for free with my All Card,” she said. 

TANK’s goal is to improve reliability and accessibility while adapting to modern commuting patterns 

“We’re going into this planning study with the mindset of how we can make our services as efficient as possible,” Tussey said. “We still want to serve as many people as we can, especially the transit-dependent people in Northern Kentucky. We’ve already been tweaking the plan based on public feedback, so the end result could still look different.” 

TANK expects to release the final plan early next year, with potential service changes taking effect in late summer 2020. 

“It’s kind of this iterative process, so we’re working through it, and the final plan will be put out to the public early next year. And then the earliest that any changes, any service changes, would actually, you know, hit the streets, isn’t until, like late next summer, like July, August,” Tussey says.  

NKU students and any Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati residents need to keep these future plans in mind to see how they will affect them in the upcoming years.  

For more information on the proposed changes, visit www.tankbus.org/reimagining-transit/