The soon-to-be-formed Dane County Regional Transit Authority will have its hands full over the next year drafting bylaws, developing a transit plan and preparing for a sales tax referendum without any funding or dedicated staff.

County leaders said that means the new RTA board must rely on staff from Madison's bus agency and the Madison Area Transportation Planning Board, plus volunteer transit planners from Madison, Middleton, Fitchburg, Sun Prairie and other RTA members, though none of the municipalities is expected to include RTA funding in the 2010 budget.

The Dane County Board voted 20-16 with one member absent at 1:30 a.m. Friday to approve the new governmental body with authority to impose up to a half-cent sales tax. They heard more than four hours of testimony from nearly 90 speakers who were almost evenly divided for and against the proposal. An additional 300 registered but did not speak.

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and mayors responsible for appointing the nine-member RTA board pledged that their members would support a referendum before a sales tax would be imposed.

The Transportation Planning Board is in the process of updating its five-year transit plan in coordination with Metro Transit and the state Department of Transportation. Planner Bill Schaefer said the agency was already planning to present three options to the RTA board: an expanded bus system, a more expensive bus-rapid transit system and commuter rail.

The RTA board could then make changes before presenting a final plan to voters prior to a sales tax referendum. Another question the RTA board may have to decide is whether to take over operation of Metro Transit.

"Most people's assumption is that the RTA will own and operate the regional transit system, and Metro will be folded into the RTA," Schaefer said. "There's definitely a lot of decisions that need to be made and a lot of things that need to be worked out."

Login to post your comment. If you don't have an account, you may register for one.