Petition Tag - copanews

The Maricopa city council voted 4-3 Tuesday August 18, 2009 to end the city’s year-old bus program. The decision to end the service comes as a shock because the city had recently been awarded $750,000 in federal stimulus funds to relocate the current park and ride location and purchase a 30-passenger bus for the service, the first the city would have owned.

Currently the city contracts through All Aboard America to provide three buses and drivers to operate the service. The monies to fund the program come from a federal grant that provides more than 90 percent of the $786,906 required to fund the service.

In its first year of operation the MaX program exceeded rider ship goals set forth by city leaders and was named one of the top five performing transit services receiving federal funding in the state. Attaining those goals put Maricopa in line to reduce its financial match this upcoming cycle from $251,000 to $226,000.

Despite the rider ship success, city council voted to end the program without giving it a fair evaluation, causing the city to add at least 100 more cars to the already congested 347 route.

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