By Karen Vance
Enquirer contributor

UNION TOWNSHIP - For two years, Beverly Bockrath has taken the bus from her Union Township home to work downtown.

Now, because of an agreement approved this week by the Clermont County commissioners and the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, which operates the Metro bus service, her bus will keep rolling for now.

BUS STOPS

Route 3: Loveland at East Loveland and the railroad tracks Route 26 and 75: Hamlet at Ohio 125 and Ohio 132; Amelia at Ohio 125 and Glen Este-Withamsville Road; Pierce Township at Ohio 125 at the Cherry Grove Shopping Center Route 28: Milford at Mohawk Trail Route 82: Union Township at the Clepper Park park and ride Information: Web site.

"I just don't like to drive downtown. Traffic is horrendous and parking is horrible," Bockrath said. "But I can work on the bus. I can read on the bus. That's 20 minutes I can spend doing something else, and with the weather we've had, it's been a godsend."

But Bockrath, who uses the park-and-ride at Clepper Park, and hundreds of other Clermont County Metro riders had been in danger of losing that bus service. SORTA had threatened to discontinue her route 82 and stop four others, routes 3, 26, 28 and 75, from crossing into the county at the end of March unless an agreement was reached to pay for it.

SORTA used to receive federal funding for the route, but a change in Clermont County's status after the 2000 census altered the way the county receives money for transportation, requiring a new agreement, said County Commissioner Mary Walker.

For the new contract, which runs through Sept. 30, the county gives SORTA its federal allocation of $494,952, plus Union Township's funds of $50,283.

The contract also included an agreement that Metro will support Union Township's application for a park-and-ride at their proposed new civic center, said Ken Geis, township administrator.

The grant would provide $340,000 to create an expanded parking lot on the site, behind Furniture Fair and Bigg's on Aicholtz Road. It would also provide for the possibility of a future transit center on the site, he said.

The county, Union Township and SORTA are continuing negotiations to continue the service in the next fiscal year. It's also unclear how the funding changes will affect the county's rural, on-demand transit system, Clermont Transportation Connection, Walker said.