By ALLISON WOOD

Staff Writer

CLEVELAND — The Regional Transit Authority hopes the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency transit council will vote today to allocate $10.5 million of unspent federal transit funds for transit operations to the agency.

However, Medina County Commissioner Stephen D. Hambley is rallying officials from Lorain, Geauga and Lake counties, who also are part of NOACA, to get more funding for their own transit departments that have seen budget cuts.

Hambley said RTA could receive as much as 94 percent, or about $10 million, of the money because that is the percentage of passenger miles and fuel costs the agency uses compared with the other counties’ transit systems. This is in violation of normal guidelines since funding is usually awarded proportionally by population. Cuyahoga County, which RTA serves, should only receive 65 percent of the money since that is its population percentage in the region, he said.

“They’re ignoring the rules,” Hambley said.

Medina County makes up about 7 percent of the region’s population, meaning the county should receive about $700,000, he said, instead of the 1 percent proposed, about $150,000, it could receive.

“It’s basically a money grab,” Hambley said concerning RTA’s actions.

The transit council has five members, with one representative from each NOACA county.

RTA officials are debating cutting routes, including a line that goes to Brunswick, and raising fares to offset a nearly $20 million budget deficit.

In Medina County, county transit buses only will run from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. starting in September, which Hambley said already has affected some users who use the buses to go to work or for medical procedures like kidney dialysis.

“It’ll mean a whole lot more to us than to RTA,” Hambley said, because RTA does not provide those services in Cuyahoga County.

While this funding comes from the federal government, NOACA approves where it is spent, Hambley said.

RTA spokesman Jerry Masek said the state has cut transit funding by 63 percent over the last several years, even as costs have risen. The funding would only be a short-term “stop-gap” measure for the agency.

Medina County’s representative on the committee is transit director Scott Uhas, but Hambley said other NOACA members are allowed to attend committee meetings. Hambley sits on the board’s governing board, which includes county commissioners, and was a former president.

The transit committee meets today, but the council’s recommendation must get formal approval at the next NOACA executive committee meeting, which will be held Sept. 12 at the Medina County University Center.

Wood may be reached at 330-721-4050 or allisonwood@ohio.net.

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