By Erik Potter, Post-Tribune staff writer
MERRILLVILLE -- The Regional Bus Authority approved as much as $170,000 for a consultant team to put together a plan to consolidate the Hammond, Gary and East Chicago bus systems.
The moves comes a day before the Regional Development Authority, which funds the RBA's operations through a $6 million grant, is expected to "direct" the RBA to do just that, with the possibility that further distributions of the $6 million grant may be suspended if they do not.
The RBA was created by the state legislature in order to regionalize Northwest Indiana's bus systems. The RDA was created, in part, to help fund that effort.
With budget shortfalls causing the Northwest Indiana Community Action Corp. shutting down their bus service at the end of January and Hammond Transit System on the verge of shutting down at the end of June, RDA board members are pushing for a faster timeline for consolidation.
In Parsons Brinckerhoff, a New York-based consulting firm with expertise in transit consolidation, RDA board members think they've found the tool to move that process forward quicker.
RBA members were reluctant to sign on, however, because the $170,000 will come out of their grant money -- money that had already been earmarked for different things, primarily an express bus route to Chicago from west Lake County.
The RBA has already been criticized for spending big money on previous transit studies with little to show for it in terms of results on the ground.
"We've got what Rudy Clay calls the 'paralysis of analysis,'" quipped RBA Board Member and Lake County Councilman Tom O'Donnell, D-Dyer.
In the end, however, the board voted unanimously for the measure.
In other business, Vice President Stephen Adik said he was not interested in being the permanent replacement for Board President Dennis Rittenmeyer. Rittenmeyer plans to resign from the board no later than June 1. Adik, who is from Porter County, said that it would not make sense politically to have a Porter County representative serve as board president because the major issues the RBA is dealing with are in Lake County.