Squak Mountain residents seeking bus service are one step closer to their goal after the Council Transportation Committee unanimously agreed Thursday, March 5 to add the topic to the Public Works Engineering workplan.

Staff members will research the different options available for securing transportation and hopefully have a proposal ready by the fall, when 2010 budget deliberations begin, said Transportation Manager Gary Costa.

“This is all we asked for,” said Squak Mountain resident Paul Winterstein. “It’s all we wanted. It suggests that this is one of their priorities, and I’m just thrilled to death. And I know a number of people on Squak Mountain who are really going to be pleased.”

Winterstein and close to 15 other Squak Mountain residents attended the February Transportation Committee meeting to detail the results of a community-conducted survey about bus service.

That survey determined that a number of residents want the service, and are in many cases willing to pay for it.

The survey was in response to a September 2008 meeting on the same subject where the city presented a list of possible options for extending service. Many of those options focused on carpooling and limited service.

However, residents emphasized that all-day transportation needs to be available. Many seniors who are unable to drive live on the mountain, and many people would simply like to get to the grocery store and back without driving, Winterstein said.

The most likely options to be pursued are an agreement with King Country Metro, private transportation, or a shared ride service.

“At minimum there’s at least three or four possibilities which I think staff needs to explore the pros and cons and feasibility of, so we know which one is best,” said Committee Chair Joshua Schaer.

Costs to looking into bus service are minimal, Costa said, and include staff time and miscellaneous items such as making copies.

But, there’s no use in hashing out the details until a mode of service is selected, Schaer said, reiterating a point he made at last month’s meeting.

“Like I said, we can’t get down to planning actual routes or who gets served or when they get served until we know, generally speaking, what the service is going to be,” he said.