Northwest Indiana RDA will remain Regional Bus Authority's engine

By Keith Benman, Times of Northwest Indiana
keith.benman@nwi.com

The Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority intends to go "full speed ahead" in supporting the Regional Bus Authority, despite proposed legislation that could put it out of business, the RDA chairman said.

"I think No. 1, we're at the point right now where we are focused on getting the right business plan in place for the RBA," RDA Chairman Leigh Morris said Wednesday.

That includes following through on a $170,000 consultant's study now under way that would "fast-track" bus consolidation in Northwest Indiana, Morris said.

The RDA is the bus authority's main financial backer and since 2006 has approved $6.9 million in grants for the agency's efforts to consolidate region bus services. The RBA has not yet received all that money.

The RDA chairman's comments came one day after an Indiana Senate committee approved proposed legislation to establish a four-county, supertransit agency and put the RBA and Gary Public Transportation Corp. out of business by Jan. 1, 2010.

It also comes one day after the House author of that legislation, Rep. Chet Dobis, D-Merrillville, once again knocked the RBA as dysfunctional.

"Our RBA -- Regional Bus Authority -- today is a disaster," Dobis told the Senate Transportation Committee Tuesday. "We have absolutely no idea where they're going."

RBA President Dennis Rittenmeyer said neither he nor other transit agency heads were consulted about the legislation. Its passage in the Senate committee Tuesday came as a surprise, he said.

"They didn't want anyone to know because some people might have said that's not good," Rittenmeyer said. "I think what's dysfunctional is the Indiana General Assembly."

When contacted Wednesday, Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District and Gary Public Transportation Corp. officials both said the legislation's new provisions came as a surprise to them. They said it would take some time to sift through the details.

The supertransit agency proposed in Dobis' legislation would oversee bus operations and the South Shore commuter railroad in Lake, Porter, LaPorte and St. Joseph counties.

It would be made up of elected officials from each county and a gubernatorial appointment and would have the power to levy an income tax of up to 0.25 percent on residents of the four counties.

When asked if money spent so far on the RBA has been wasted, Morris responded unequivocally.

"Absolutely not," he said. "If it is dissolved, something else will have to take its place. And that something else will need exactly what's being done now."