Polk County - Merging small bus systems

in

The theLedger.com article tells the story Polk Considering Merging Transit Boards
Even smaller cities and rural areas are seeing the benefits of mass transit -- with big increases in ridership too...

BARTOW | County commissioners agreed today to consider merging some of the county’s transit boards.

The first board that may be merged is the Winter Haven Area Transit board, which was formed before the creation last year of the Polk County Transit Authority.
...
Growth Managerment Director Tom Deardorff, who was director of the Transportation Planning Organization when the W.H.A.T. board was set up, said the phaseout was always anticipated to prevent overlap.

The discussion included a presentation that showed annual ridership has increased from 100,000 to slightly more than 500,000 since the system was founded in 2000.

For the first quarter of 2008, ridership increased 15 percent from the first quarter of 2007.