Spend and study

Hundreds of thousands of dollars and at least 10 years have been spent studying Cape Girardeau County's transportation needs.

In 1996, the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning Commission undertook a transportation study ordered by the Cape Girardeau County Commission. Most of the $37,000 spent came from a federal grant.

In 1998, that study recommended the county take the lead in setting up a countywide transportation system, consolidating the programs run by numerous organizations and setting up a centralized dispatch system. A committee was established to study how to use the existing transportation resources in the county more efficiently.

In 1999, that committee recommended establishing a transit authority to coordinate transportation in the county. The committee also proposed the authority operate a fixed-route bus system. A 1999 United Way study pointed to the lack of public transit as one of the area's most significant issues.

The county commission created the five-member transit authority in June 2000 and appointed a nine-member committee to advise the transit authority. In 2002, the authority hired executive director Jeff Brune.

In 2003, complaints about the subsidized taxi-coupon service in Cape Girardeau prompted new calls for a fixed-route bus system. The Missouri Department of Transportation authorized a $225,000 study expected to take six months.

The results of that study, delayed for more than a year in part due to the consultant's illness, were presented to the Cape Girardeau City Council earlier this month. The consultant recommended a fixed-route bus system, consolidation of transportation services and a county sales tax to fund the service. By the time the findings were delivered, the first two recommendations were already in place.

Study and planning are essential parts of a project as big as this one. But it's hard to look at the recommendations of the 1998 study and the recommendations of the study completed this year and wonder what took so long -- or why so much money had to be spent on studies.