The Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority has directed the Regional Bus Authority to take over all three urban bus systems in Lake County by June 30.
The 6-0 vote by the RDA goes against a decision made by the RBA itself two years ago to simply act as the coordinator of existing bus systems while expanding service throughout Lake and Porter counties.
"This better realizes what we wanted to do all along," said RBA Chairman Leigh Morris after the directive passed on a 6-0 vote.
The directive came after weeks of meetings between officials from the RBA, RDA and other organizations, Morris said. The mayors of Hammond, East Chicago and Gary were consulted and concurred with the directive, Morris said.
Gary Mayor Rudy Clay and East Chicago Mayor George Pabey did not return calls seeking comment Thursday afternoon. Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. has long urged the RBA to take over responsibility for Hammond Transit.
The RDA directive also instructs the RBA to develop a plan to work with demand-response bus services in Lake County and public bus services in Porter County to become the operator of those services "as expeditiously as practical."
"Clear directives are nice to have," said RBA Executive Director Tim Brown after the vote.
Morris said RBA officials said they are open to new legislation that might replace the RBA with another organization.
The RDA also authorized spending up to $30,000 to fund an impartial review and update of a 2006 study by RBA consultant TranSystems, which studied options for regionalizing bus service.
After that study was completed, the RBA board of directors rejected what was called the "universal operator" option under which the agency would have taken over all bus service in the two counties.
Brown said the situation with bus service in the region has changed markedly since the RBA decided to reject the universal service option in favor of a more limited role. It will change further when tax caps kick in under House Bill 1001, Brown said.
There have been complaints from McDermott and Pabey that the RBA has been moving too slowly in regionalizing bus service.
All three city bus companies have experienced financial woes, which will worsen this year under the tax caps imposed on localities.
The Hammond City Council had considered ending all Hammond Transit bus service at the end of December. A compromise arrived at by the council allows service to continue in Hammond until June, with casino money used to support it.
