A proposed agreement to create a regional transit authority has been drafted and will be sent to local city councils and Blaine County for their consideration.
The authority would merge Ketchum Area Rapid Transit and the Peak Bus to create one administration and route system to serve the entire Wood River Valley. Currently, KART buses serve Ketchum and Sun Valley and the Peak Bus carries commuters between Bellevue and Sun Valley.
During a meeting last week, elected officials from Ketchum and Sun Valley hammered out the wording of a final draft agreement. Sun Valley City Attorney Rand Peebles, who wrote the document, said he hopes the entities involved can put the issue on their meeting agendas in early December. He said their comments will then be incorporated into a final version of the agreement that will be presented to the five city councils and to the County Commission for their approval.
"It's definitely still a work in progress," Peebles said.
The draft agreement grants the authority the right to buy the land, facilities and vehicles needed to establish a countywide transportation system; to fund maintenance of the system; to apply for federal and state grants; to contract with other entities to provide services and to study local transportation needs.
Under the draft agreement, the authority would be governed by a board appointed by the entities involved.
But the agreement is intentionally vague on funding.
"That would be totally based on good-faith negotiations on a yearly basis," Peebles said. "I'm trying to word it so that it isn't absolutely formula driven."
The KART system is funded on a 60-40 split between Ketchum and Sun Valley. Peebles said he expects that to be the starting point for negotiations, with Hailey, Bellevue, Carey and Blaine County contributing additional resources.
However, Ketchum Mayor Ed Simon, who did not participate in the Wednesday, Nov. 16, meeting, expressed skepticism that an agreement will be of much use without concrete wording on funding.
"Until we have some viable funding mechanism, all this is is talk," he said. "An agreement that doesn't say how the authority is going to be paid for is destined for failure."
KART runs on an $850,000 budget for operations and maintenance, funded primarily by local option tax receipts. The Peak Bus has a $250,000 budget, of which $106,000 comes from federal grants, $89,000 from local cities and the county, and $60,000 from fares.
Creation of the authority would facilitate acquisition of federal grants, which are distributed through the state of Idaho. Butch Ragsdale, grants manager with the Idaho Transportation Department, said the ITD board has recommended that between $400,000 and $450,000 of federal rural transit program money, collected from gas taxes, be given to Blaine County next year for public transportation. However, he said, the department is waiting for the local transportation authority to be finalized before it awards the money.
"We told them, 'Here's the federal money that's available, but we want to see you partner up and start coordinating,'" Ragsdale said.
