COUNTY TRANSPORATION STILL BEING STUDIED

The Cape Girardeau County Commission more than two years ago appointed a committee to study the possibility of establishing a program that would bring all of the transportation services that operate in the county together to provide a coordinated public transportation system that would be accessible to everyone in the county.

The committee was appointed after commissioners questioned why so many agencies, many of them publicly supported, had so many vans traveling the same county roads in a duplication of services. Those questions arose after commissioners heard complaints by some rural residents that they had no way to get around.

Many of the agencies get state and federal money to operate the vans exclusively for the clients they serve, and some of that money is funneled through the county.

The committee was charged with determining if the agencies that provide transportation could work together to offer a service that would serve more people more efficiently. The idea was to involve every agency that operates buses or vans -- from senior citizens services to quasi-governmental programs to the for-profit taxi service operated by Kelley Transportation Co. in Cape Girardeau.

The committee has concluded its task, with help of the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission at Perryville. Not surprisingly, the committee's study found that a countywide transit system could provide improved transportation for more residents of Cape Girardeau County.

Now that the report has been received, an ad hoc committee is conducting a survey to determine transportation needs and projected uses of public transportation. The panel hopes to get responses from as many people as possible through December and to submit a final report to the County Commission in January.

The committee has been examining two possible countywide services: a centralized dispatching system that would involve agencies that run vehicles, and development of a fixed-route system that would operate much like a bus service that operates along the same routes on a schedule.

The survey very well could show that most people would like to see a fixed-route system in the county. While that would be nice, it could be costly, and the County Commission has not indicated that it would be willing to venture into the public transportation business.

Unless a fixed-route service could be established with the existing systems, the county shouldn't consider one. The commission must not lose sight of the fact that the sole purpose of all the studying was to determine if all of the services could be coordinated to provide transportation for more people on a more cost-efficient basis.