The Berrien County Board of Commissioners will be looking at ways to keep Berrien Bus alive heading into the new year. At a meeting this past week, Berrien County Community Development Director Dan Fette told the board Berrien Bus is in decent shape now because of federal CARES Act money, but a county task force has determined its public ridership is not enough to make the service viable long-term. The plan is to reach out to local communities that use it to form partnerships.
“We think the only option to boost that service, make it more usable and more important for the residents is to find some local partnerships where communities are willing to actually pay into the cost of providing that service, and that would provide a foundation that we can start to build upon at that point,” Fette said.
Fette said the county will meet with the communities and offer them a cost-share, dedicated public ridership system within their municipality to be paid for on a per hour basis. With locals contributing, Fette said Berrien Bus public service could be sustained. He also noted this avoids having a countywide tax for the service in areas where it isn’t used. County Administrator Brian Dissette said the goal is long-term stability for public transit in the county.
