News Archive

Mass transit the subject of city-county meeting

By: Michael Abernethy
Published: Sunday, March 8, 2009

Boards meet Tuesday night to discuss needs, funding for bus service

City and county leaders will put their heads together over public transportation for the first time this week.

The Burlington City Council, Alamance County commissioners and Brent McKinney, Piedmont Area Regional Transit executive director, will discuss the possibility of a park-and-ride service here at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Kernodle Senior Center. The meeting is open to the public.

PART provides park-and-ride and point-to-point bus service to eight Triad counties. Alamance and Rockingham counties are the only two in the Triad where PART doesn't operate.

The city council has loosely discussed adding park-and-ride service - which would include constructing a large parking lot near the interstate - since early 2008. This fall, McKinney presented the council with statistics and funding options that would need to be approved by the county.

Mayor Ronnie Wall said the joint meeting was proposed simply to gauge commissioners' interest in a transportation system. The taxes involved with covering the service include an additional 5-percent tax on rental cars or up to $5 added to vehicle registration in Alamance County. Either of those taxes would have to be approved by commissioners.

Chairwoman Linda Massey has heard from residents for and against mass transit. She will wait to hear McKinney's presentation and find out what other commissioners think before she weighs in on the issue, she said last week.

"We need to look at it and see if it's a feasible thing in this economy," Massey said. "In an economy like this, people might not want to drive their cars as much. We have a lot of people who work outside of the county. This might help them."

Commissioner Dan Ingle, who serves on the Transportation Advisory Committee, says he's in favor of park-and-ride service.

"I think we need park-and-ride lots. I always have," he said. "I lean more toward the rental-car tax (than the vehicle-registration tax) but, again, we don't know what or how much that will bring in."

In September, McKinney said up to 90 percent of startup and operational costs could be covered by federal and state grants for cities and counties that create bus routes and park-and-ride services. Federal funding and grants meet up to 80 percent of Piedmont Authority for Regional Transit's $15.8 million annual budget. State funding adds another 10 percent. The final 10-percent cost to eight counties served by PART is covered by local taxes.

Burlington City Manager Harold Owen said this week the $1.1 million startup cost could be covered by the federal stimulus project. It's rumored the area could see $1.4 million for public transportation later this year.

The only other topic on Tuesday's agenda is discussion of enforcement of the mandatory vegetative buffer around local lakes.