For months, Berks Area Regional Transit Authority has been
considering a merger with Red Rose Transit Authority in Lancaster County to cut
costs and increase efficiencies in its services.
Monday evening, BARTA’s board members voted in favor of
moving forward to pursue the merge even further.
If all goes well, the transit authorities hope the merger is
official by the end of the year, BARTA’s executive director, David Kilmer, said
this morning.
“It presents good opportunity to look at economies of scale
and cost savings by consolidating the management of both systems,” said Kilmer,
who also is executive director of Red Rose.
Established in 1973 by Berks County and Reading, BARTA
operates as its own municipal authority and is funded by the state Department
of Transportation and Federal Transit Administration. A nine-person board of
directors, appointed by Berks County Commissioners, oversees operations that
serve the urbanized areas of Berks County.
After the September death of Dennis Louwerse, who had been
at the helm of BARTA for 30 years, Kilmer became executive director of the
Berks authority. Kilmer splits time between BARTA and Red Rose as the head of
both transit authorities.
BARTA, with 157 full-time employees, operates with 44
regular buses, also known as fixed route, and 50 door-to-door paratransit vans
for the elderly and disabled. It provides 21 bus routes, with thousands of
stops throughout the city, picking up and delivering passengers on almost every
corner along the city routes and at designated stops along rural routes.
Kilmer said Red Rose is similar in size and budget to BARTA,
with 101 full-time employees and a fleet of 42 fixed-route and 60 paratransit
buses.
“As a bigger system, we might be able to get better pricing
and larger quantities, while improving the quality of service for both
communities,” Kilmer said.
In BARTA’s 2013 annual report, during the fiscal year of
2012-13 the transit authority bought more than $9 million in goods and services
from Pennsylvania businesses. Of that amount, nearly $5 million were purchases
made from Berks County businesses.
“If combination of management of BARTA and Red Rose can
indeed provide better economical solutions without impacting service and
quality, then the business community and citizens will indeed support it,” Jack
Gulati, owner of the Reading Royals ice hockey team and longtime Reading
businessman, said in a previous interview.
Source: LVB.com
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