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Cedar County Transit Service is looking to expand

HARTINGTON — Cedar County’s transit system is on the grow again.

Cedar County Transit has expanded from one handi-bus in the early 1990s to a fleet of seven minivans today.

That fleet will expand again later this year when three more vehicles arrive, said Cedar County Clerk Dave Dowling.

Once the new vehicles are on the ground here, Cedar County will have 10 transit vehicles in its fleet. One of those will be sold off, however, Dowling said, because it has quite a few miles on it.

The transit system is designed to provide rides to Cedar County residents to area communities. Routes will go as far away as Yankton, S.D., Sioux City, Iowa, Lincoln and Omaha. The riders are charged a flat fee for the service, depending on how far they need to travel.

The system could soon see an expansion of another kind, as well.

Neb. Dept. of Transportation Transit System Manager Kari Ruse met recently with Cedar County Commissioners about the possibility of building a new facility to house the fleet of vehicles and administrative offices for the transit system.

Cedar County Transit currently rents the old ambulance bay at the Hartington City Hall. This only accommodates a few vehicles, though, so the rest of the fleet is parked on the street outside of the city office or in the south Cedar County Courthouse parking lot.

The transit system is funded primarily with federal funds from the Dept. of Transportation, Dowling said.

The federal government pays for 90 percent of the administration cost for the program.

Eighty percent of the cost of purchasing and maintaining all transit vehicles is covered by the federal government. The state pays 10 percent of those expenses, as well, Dowling said, leaving the County to pay for the other 10 percent.

That same funding formula would also be used for a new building here, Dowling said.

Ruse said an application for construction of a new facility has been filed with the federal Deptarment of Transportation. She expects to hear in the next 30-60 days if the project has been approved for funding.

If approval is granted, the state would then act as the facilitator between the federal government and Cedar County, helping to get the structure built, she said.

Ruse said the goal is to have a new building in place in 2020 if all goes well.

No location has yet been determined for the facility, though, Dowling said.

The County Transit system, which has been in operation in one form or another for the past 30 years, has become a shining example for other rural Nebraska counties, Ruse said.

“Cedar County is somewhat unique in the large service area it covers,” Ruse said. “The fact that Cedar County has grown the service so much and the ridership has more than doubled since 2015 tells us there is a need and they are meeting that need.”

The Cedar County Transit system is operated by full-time coordinator Nikki Pinkelman and seven part-time drivers.

Pinkelman said the transit system need has grown in ridership and miles driven since it started in 2015. She also reported the system provided a record number of rides in October.

Pinkelman said the local transit system is considered to be a model system for other counties within Nebraska.

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