The Incline Railway will reopen no later than July 14, with timber and rail going in through May and new cable being strung in June.
Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority officials said they expect insurance to reimburse $2.2 million in lost ticket revenues and $900,000 in repair costs. A small wildfire on the side of Lookout Mountain closed the Incline in December.
CARTA President and CEO Charles Frazier said that regular maintenance work layered in this spring means the Incline will not close for maintenance at all during 2026.
As CARTA waits for requested funding to be approved in city and county annual budgets, Chairman Johan de Nysschen voiced a plea to elected officials.
“CARTA plays the central role of getting people to work,” he said,
Chronic underfunding has stunted CARTA’s frequency and reach, he said, directly affecting its usefulness.
“It needs to be funded in order to become great,” he said.
The chairman said transportation is just one of three necessities the Chattanooga area lacks to “unlock” 40 percent of the region’s talent pool that is “chronically and systemically” underemployed, without access to transportation, education and job training, and childcare, he said.
“They are not participating in this vibrant growth,” he said.
He warned that new investment in Chattanooga will be increasingly hard to attract without fixing these three root causes of underemployment. Educated and trained workers have been skimmed from Chattanooga’s talent pool, leaving new investors with slimmer and slimmer pickings, he said.
Low-priced housing in East Brainerd may attract new talent from all over the country who can’t get to work at Enterprise South, he said.
“It should not be,” he said.
“That is why I am here, because we can and we must change this,” Chairman de Nysschen said. “I don’t want to let this opportunity go to waste.”
Financial consultant Sander Abernathy reported that CARTA is transitioning “fast and furious” to new payroll, scheduling and financial reporting systems by July 1.
“It’s a big lift, but we’re going to make it happen,” Mr. Abernathy said.
He is reworking the fiscal year 2026 budget to present in June. The new systems will let CARTA recalculate revenue predictions for a more accurate budget going forward. The new data will better identify qualifying expenses for Federal Transit Administration reimbursement grants and other like funding sources, he said.
“The discovery journey that you’re on doesn’t come as a surprise,” Chairman de Nysschen said.
CARTA relies on the FTA to reimburse 80 percent of certain costs. Mr. Frazier reported that the agency is “operating with the assumption of normalcy returning soon” after he visited CARTA’s Region 4 representatives at FTA in Washington, D.C., this month.
The board voted to delineate levels of service for Care-A-Van paratransit service, placing Red Bank and East Ridge in a category that relies on funding from those municipalities to operate. As East Ridge grapples with funding Care-A-Van, Red Bank has voted to fully fund the service.
Level 1: CARTA is mandated to offer Care-A-Van pickup and drop off at any address within three-quarters of a mile of its fixed route.
Level 2: Dependent upon funding from the City of Chattanooga, CARTA will offer Care-A-Van pickup and drop off anywhere within Chattanooga city limits.
Level 3: Dependent upon funding from the cities of East Ridge, Red Bank, and other Hamilton County municipalities, CARTA will offer Care-A-Van pickup and drop off anywhere within those city limits.
Level 4: Dependent upon funding from Hamilton County, CARTA will offer Care-A-Van pickup and drop off anywhere in unincorporated Hamilton County.