A Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority “listening session” planned for Monday night at a West Toledo library wasn’t scheduled with the agency’s proposal for countywide bus service in mind, but general manager James Gee expects that to come up even though the proposal appears dead for the time being.

The 5:30 p.m. meeting at the Sanger Branch Library, 3030 W. Central Ave., is just the latest of about 20 the transit authority has held from time to time over the past two years to gather public opinion about public transportation in metro Toledo, Mr. Gee said Monday afternoon.

RELATED: Sylvania Twp. rejects TARTA funding overhaul for Toledo area

“This is an opportunity for us to meet with passengers and ask them what are we doing well, what are we not doing well, and what could we do better,” the transit manager said.

The Sylvania Township board of trustees voted last week, 2-1, to reject a resolution admitting Lucas County as a transit authority member.

That effectively vetoed the idea because under Ohio law, all seven of TARTA’s existing member communities had to pass such resolutions admitting the county before a proposed countywide, half-percent sales tax could be put up for a referendum vote.

The Maumee, Ottawa Hills, and Rossford municipal councils had approved admitting the county, while Toledo and Waterville had not yet voted and Sylvania City Council had deadlocked, 3-3.

Mr. Gee said he does not anticipate making any presentation about the sales-tax proposal, but “the idea of county-wide service has been brought up at every meeting.”

TARTA is the last major transit authority in Ohio to depend on property taxes for its local subsidy. The transit authority collects two levies totaling 2.5 mills in its service area.

It operates buses outside of those seven communities only on a contractual basis. The countywide proposal has been motivated in part by the absence of public transportation in such busy commercial areas as Springfield Township and Oregon.

Mr. Gee said any further consideration of changes in how TARTA is funded and where it operates will be up to its board of trustees, which next meets Aug. 3.

“We’re going to take the feedback we’ve heard back to the board of trustees,” he said Monday afternoon.

First Published July 24, 2017, 7:20 p.m.