AATA to Present Transit Master Plan in Saline on Tuesday

A 30-year master plan for Washtenaw public transit calls for a small bus route to move people around Saline and express bus routes from Milan and Manchester to Saline and then Ann Arbor. The plan, created based on information gleaned from three phases of public meetings, will be presented from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday at .

"Our master plan is finished—and I put the word 'finished' in quotes," said Michael Benham, project coordinator for The Ride, a service of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority. "This version is finished, and we're bringing it out to the communities so people can tell us if we got it right."

Benham said the AATA is continually being asked to provide service for residents living outside Ann Arbor. The AATA is funded, in part, by a 2-mill levy on Ann Arbor residents and a smaller tax on Ypsilanti residents, as well as by user fares and grants. Benham said the city's ability to meet out-of-town demands is limited. Eventually, he said, the county authority may govern a county transit system that would oversee much of what is seen in the master plan.

According to the proposed master plan, Saline would see two forms of public transit. The city would be home to a local circulator, a small bus that carries people around town. Saline also would be a stop on express bus routes to Ann Arbor from Milan and Manchester.

According to Benham, these services would similar to AATA programs that exist in Chelsea.

In Chelsea, residents can pay a fee to board The Ride bus that carries people to various locations around town. That program is paid for with fares, grants from federal programs and foundation subsidies.

AATA also provides express services from Canton and Chelsea to Ann Arbor and back. They are similar to the Milan-Saline-Ann Arbor and Manchester-Saline-Ann Arbor express routes planned.

In Chelsea, a couple of  expresses leave for Ann Arbor in the morning, and a couple return in the evening. Residents pay $5 a ride, although they may buy monthly passes for $99 or a 10-ride ticket for a discount. University of Michigan employees also ride at the discounted rate of $49. The bus leaves Chelsea, heads down M-52 and and Interstate 94 and doesn't stop until it gets to downtown Ann Arbor.

The plan also lists  Milan as a stop on an Ann Arbor-Toledo rail service, but Benham said the AATA sees rail to Livingston County as a greater priority.

When might any of this begin? That's to be decided by politics.

"One way to do this would be to start a countywide organization," Benham said. "Many of these things can't be started until we have that organization going. That's a political process, and some of it is happening now, as we speak."

One idea involves creating a 15-person board that would include the current seven-member AATA board and eight additional members from other stakeholder communities. Benham descibed a "virtual authority" that would begin discussing ways to create a permanent authority to take charge of the county transit program. That new body would be responsible for finding ways to fund the new transit initiatives.