By Howard Packowitz

BLOOMINGTON – Connect Transit Board Chairman Mike McCurdy is standing by statements he made earlier this month to the Normal Town Council even though another board member said McCurdy provided the council with wrong information.

“I wasn’t speaking from the hip at the Normal Town Council,” said McCurdy.

“I certainly sat down and talked with staff about the things I wanted to say to make sure they were accurate, and I think they are.”

At the end of Tuesday’s board meeting, John Bowman suggested McCurdy and Vice Chair Ryan Whitehouse may have undermined the transit system’s credibility when they said bus sizes did not cause a reduction in service at a time about four years ago when the system phased-in a fleet of larger 40 foot buses.

Rather, McCurdy said Connect Transit shifted a route by a block at Sunnyside Court, and tweaked another route for safety reasons to avoid driving through a parking lot at the McLean County nursing home.

“I think Mr. Bowman needs to also make sure that the things he says are accurate as well, and I would also disagree with his characterization that service has been removed from Sunnyside or the McLean County Nursing Home when there is still a bus going by both,” McCurdy said.

The changes were so minor, according to McCurdy, they did not require transit board approval.

“We were hopeful that us going to that (council) meeting, answering those questions, providing the answers, would stop the questions, but apparently they don’t like the answers,” McCurdy said.

“The answers are fact-based and data-driven. The answers aren’t going to change just because the questions keep getting asked repeatedly,” McCurdy also said.

Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]