Report on BlueGo’s efficiency expected Friday

By Kathryn Reed

South Shore transit officials expect to get a rundown Friday about how the public bus system is operating. Transit Resource Concepts took over the business side on an interim basis last month.

(South Tahoe Area Transit Authority’s board meets April 9 at 1pm at the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency office at 128 Market St., Stateline).

TRC has been tasked with looking at MV Transit’s records (they operate the BlueGo buses), financial records, structure of the organization and offer long-term visionary ideas to the board.

“What’s missing and lacking and we’re searching for is oversight,” board member Stacy Dingman said. “We need a really strong leader who can direct the board.”

The idea is an executive director will be brought in to run the bus system. Transit administrator John Andoh and STATA parted ways last month. The next leader will have more authority.

Dingman said Andoh was the right person at the time because he knew where buses should go and was able to help the system with scheduling. But in those two years, STATA realized it needs more than what Andoh could give. Andoh, before he left, said an executive director is what the agency needs.

“We need an executive director to tell us what to focus on. I really believe it is a really good problem to have. We realize we need help to make this work for our community,” Dingman said.

None of the board members is a transit expert.

Also on the agenda is a staff recommendation to award a bid to Avego to install a fleet management system. The $150,000 for the hardware and software comes from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The system would be designed to locate where vehicles are and calculate the number of riders.

Dingman said in no way is this system anything like what was proposed early last decade when kiosks all over the area were supposed to assist riders with finding the nearest bus. That was a fiasco that never worked.