TITLE
The Mayor and City Council and hear and discuss a presentation by city staff on City Of Maricopa Express Transit (COMET) Ridership, Plans and the Proposed Two-Year Section 5311 Budget.
AGENDA ITEM DESCRIPTION
The City Of Maricopa has operated various services under the brand name COMET since 2008. Today the COMET offers Local Demand Response, Regional Demand Response and Route Deviation Service. Since last year's COMET presentation in March 2017, there have been significant developments in the transportation arena. Most notable is the voter passage of the Pinal Regional Transportation Authority (PRTA) 20-year Transportation Plan and accompanying new 1/2 cent sales tax. This creates a guaranteed source of funding, with $1 million earmarked for transit across Pinal County each year for 20 years. Priority on this funding is to go to existing transit systems -such as the COMET- before any new startup systems. While it is unclear at this time on the amount or when the revenue will be distributed, it is guaranteed within the language of the proposal that was approved by the voters.
With this new revenue, increases in COMET services are possible and quantifiable. If the revenue is used to subsidize local match funding, it becomes possible to leverage more federal funding due to the cost split in which the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) bears the majority of the fiscal burden. The cost split today is FTA 58 percent, local match 42 percent for operations, and FTA 80 percent, city 20 percent for administration and capital aquisition.
The proposed budget for the first year of the two year budget (FY18/19) will allow expanding service hours on the Route Deviation Service to 6 am - 12 pm and 1:00 pm - 6:00 pm Monday through Friday. Additionally, a request for six bus shelters will bring the number of funded shelters to twelve, one for each bus stop and one in reserve for growth. We believe the expanded service hours will tap a broader ridership ma...
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