A little less than two years after his community voted, by a narrow margin, to withdraw from the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority, a Spencer Township trustee has asked TARTA to consider providing bus service there on a contract basis.

The township’s efforts to provide its own public transportation have “failed miserably,” trustee Michael Hood told the TARTA board of trustees Thursday.

“There is no other transportation system comparable to what TARTA does,” Mr. Hood said. “The people in my community are suffering as a result of not having that service. ... People can’t get to their work, can’t get home from work, all kinds of issues.”

Bonita Johnson, the transit trustees’ president, said the propriety of TARTA operating in Spencer Township would have to be studied, given that township residents passed, by a 269-255 vote, a referendum to withdraw from the transit authority in November, 2013.

She also said the agency should make sure Mr. Hood properly represented the township’s interests. Mr. Hood said he had discussed the contract-service idea with his board and was checking TARTA’s receptiveness to it.

TARTA currently operates in seven member communities — Toledo, Ottawa Hills, Sylvania, Sylvania Township, Maumee, Waterville, and Rossford — and provides contract service between downtown Toledo and Owens Community College in Perrysburg Township.

Under a special legislative provision, communities were allowed to hold referenda in 2012 and 2013 to leave TARTA, which is the only major Ohio transit authority to collect property taxes as its primary local subsidy.

Perrysburg voters approved an opt-out referendum in March, 2012, while Spencer Township residents voted twice. They rejected a TARTA withdrawal in November, 2012, but then approved the second withdrawal question after it was petitioned onto the November, 2013 ballot.

Petition supporters said some voters had mistakenly believed the first time around that a “no” vote meant “no” to staying in TARTA.

TARTA service ended in Spencer on New Year’s Eve, 2013, after which the township contracted with Silver Cab Co. to offer public transportation there.

James Gee, the transit authority’s general manager, said a new petition in the township calls for restoration of TARTA service.

Along with regular transit-bus service, TARTA provides door-to-door rides for people with disabilities under its Toledo Area Regional Paratransit Service.

“We get calls from Spencer Township [requesting rides] all the time,” Jon Elston, who as director of paratransit services for TARTA oversees TARPS, told the transit trustees Thursday.

Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.

First Published September 5, 2015, 4:00 a.m.