Grant allows buses to Wintersville

STEUBENVILLE - A grant will allow Steel Valley Regional Transit Authority to run buses to Wintersville beginning sometime in 2010.

SVRTA Manager Frank Bovina told the Community Improvement Corp. board of trustees during its November meeting held Tuesday at the Jefferson County Department of Job and Family Services that the grant is the result of a variety of circumstances all coming together, including support in Wintersville.

Bovina said the program would allow the buses to run for a year without the village having to pay from its coffers or with an additional levy. However, Bovina said continuing financing would have to be found during the year, including the possibility of Wintersville putting a levy before voters. Bovina said the hope is to have the Wintersville test service established by mid-2010.

Bovina said an expansion of bus service to Wintersville has long been sought by the transit authority and makes sense because it would mean the contiguous communities of Steubenville and Mingo Junction and Wintersville could be connected by the buses.

Bovina said work is progressing on becoming part of a pilot program to run feeder buses to meet up with the interstate Greyhound lines in either Robinson Township, possibly at Pittsburgh International Airport, or at the transit center in Wheeling.

Bovina told the CIC members that while SVRTA hauls about 90,000 passengers a year, it needs to do a better job of getting the business community involved. Among those efforts is SVRTA paying to become a board member of the CIC.

"We take consumers to service providers. We are the link," he said. "My question to all of you in business is, what is the value of having a customer walk in your door? We provide the opportunity for 90,000 customers a year to walk into the door."

In other business, Ed Looman, the executive director of the Progress Alliance economic development organization, which is run by the CIC, has been named part of the advisory committee of the "Power of 32" organization, which is trying to tie together 32 counties across the Pittsburgh region for development and promotion. The counties stretch from western Maryland into Ohio.

Looman also said preliminary talks are taking place on forming a countywide port authority, but caution has to be used in setting up the agency.

"We see a benefit to Jefferson County," Looman said. The powers of a port authority are greater than a CIC when it comes to the ability to put together development sites and packages. Looman said the issue will be to avoid adding a layer of confusing bureaucracy.

"We need to bring it and the CIC together," he said. Looman said other counties with functioning community improvement corporations and port authorities need to be studied to see how to structure the port authority.

Looman said the Voinovich School at Ohio University, which helped develop the Jefferson County investment plan, has obtained a grant to study industry clusters in the county to determine what industries might be good targets for recruitment in the future.

Looman said a new personnel handbook for Progress Alliance should be ready by the end of the year. Looman said the Best of the County planning committee will meet today to set the date and location for the annual banquet. Looman said nomination forms for the annual Best of the County awards are available on the Progress Alliance Web site (www.theburb.org) or at the Progress Alliance office at 630 Market St.

(Giannamore can be contacted at pgiannamore@heraldstaronline.com.)