'dial-a-ride' Plan In Trouble

I Ann Arbor's proposafto introduce an experimental "dial-a-ride" bus service appears to be facing an extremely rocky road. The Transportation Authority is seeking matching state funds for the proposal and the major hurdle in the future- assuming the state gives the go-ahead- is the city's share of the cost. Traffic and Transportation Department Director John E. Robbins is in the process of rewriting the grant application after receiving a series of 15 questions from the state concerning the proposal. Embodied in the guidelines of the state is that the local municipality guarantee to underwrite its share of the project cost. The proposal calis for a $417,000 program over two years. Arm Arbor's share would be $208,500. Annual revenues from a "dial-a-ride" system would probably not cover this figure and, therefore, the City Council would have to guarantee any shortages from general fund revenues. The city is currently subsidizing the bus system at an annual rate of $205,000, and some councilmen have balked at this figure. Revenues from the current bus service total only about $180,000 annually. A "dial-a-ride" system is not expected to genérate anywhere near this amount of revenue, and the revenue it did genérate would doubtless detract to a degree from regular service inconie. Robbins hopes to have the application ready for re-introduction next week. He can give no estímate how long it will take the state to act on the application, although he says the state has expressed interest in such a concept. The project here is being undertaken jointly by the Transportation Authority and the Ford Motor Co. which conducted a study on the feasibility of such a system here. Basically, the "dial-a-ride" concept is bus service on demand. Customers cal! when service is needed and 12-passener vans would be programmed to piek up these persons and deliver them to their destinations in a minimum amount of time. The project here has come under fire from taxicab owners who see the "diala-ride" programs as a threat to their service. When originally advanced for experimentation here, it had been hoped the service would be under way last summer. Originally, it had been planned to j conduct the experiment in the Model Cities area with that body underwriting a pörtion of the cost.