Spencer Township trustees and the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority have given township bus riders a holiday present. TARTA’s governing board has unanimously approved a contract for call-a-ride and paratransit service in the community.
The one-year deal, effective this Friday, will cost Spencer Township $90,600. The township will cover that expense with money from its Joint Economic Development Zone with Whitehouse.
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Next year, the township will pay roughly the same amount to TARTA as it did when it belonged to the authority, but get far less service; the agreement does not include traditional fixed-route buses. In 2012, TARTA provided more than 13,500 rides in Spencer Township, TARTA spokesman Steve Atkinson told The Blade’s editorial page. Until Dec. 31, 2013, the township got more than $160,000 worth of transit service a year for $88,000 in property taxes.
Still, the one-year agreement solves an urgent problem for the township, which was not providing even minimal transit service to elderly and disabled residents. Smaller call-a-ride and paratransit buses will provide flexible, on-demand, door-to-door service for those passengers and others in this community of 1,900 residents.
Equally important, the deal provides an opportunity for the region to unite and move forward. Leaders in the Toledo area, especially Toledo Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson, should seize the moment.
Last September, Spencer Township Trustee Michael Hood acknowledged that his township’s efforts to provide public transportation had “failed miserably,” stranding workers and other former riders. The township then approached TARTA about contracting services, instead of operating as a member community. This month, Spencer Township trustees approved a plan to restore some TARTA service, starting Jan. 1.
Allowing Spencer Township, a charter transit authority member, to contract indefinitely for a la carte services would have compromised TARTA’s mission. Nor would such an agreement be fair to TARTA’s seven member communities, which are trying to build a first-rate, seamless regional transit system in northwest Ohio.
An interim agreement between TARTA and Spencer Township with the understanding — or at least the hope — that Spencer Township will do the right thing next November and put the question of resuming TARTA membership on the ballot was the best solution.
Spencer Township’s 2013 vote to secede from TARTA passed by a razor-thin 269-255 margin. Many township residents now realize that leaving TARTA was a mistake, increasing chances that voters will approve returning to TARTA and paying its 2.5-mill property tax, especially if leaders throughout the region back the move.
With 3.5 million annual boardings, TARTA serves Toledo, Maumee, Rossford, Waterville, Ottawa Hills, Sylvania, and Sylvania Township. Any community’s TARTA membership — or lack of it — affects the entire region.
A worker may live in Toledo, where nearly 14 percent of households don’t have access to vehicles, but work in Maumee and visit a doctor in Rossford. That’s why former Toledo Mayor D. Michael Collins stood in Rossford last year with Mayors Neil MacKinnon of Rossford and Richard Carr of Maumee to underscore his support for keeping Rossford in TARTA.
The regional relationships and momentum created in returning Spencer Township to TARTA should drive further efforts, including encouraging Oregon and Springfield Township to join the regional system and starting a serious debate on fairer and more sustainable funding for local transit.
First Published December 28, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
