As Madison continues to grow and area officials consider more transit options, the Regional Transit Authority has the sole responsibility of determining the best form of public transit for the area.

The Madison-area RTA, which state authorities established last year after increased interest on the County Board, had its first meeting this month. The board will meet in the coming months and years to develop new transit plans for the Madison area.

RTA Board of Directors Vice Chair and Dane County Sup. Mark Opitz, District 26, said the RTA is a freestanding authority which does not make recommendations to regional governing bodies like the Dane County Board of Supervisors or the Madison Common Council.

Opitz said the RTA would be focusing mainly on improving services of the already existing Madison Metro bus service and assessing the volume of commuters between Middleton, the University of Wisconsin campus, Downtown Madison and Sun Prairie.

“We are trying to get our hands around all of the issues pertaining to transit,” Opitz said. “What we are doing in the next meeting is going through existing studies that have been completed pertaining to bus, commuter and any aspect of transit service”.

One hanging question the RTA will consider in the years to come will be whether to utilize light commuter rail or Bus Rapid Transit for use in the Middleton-Madison-Sun Prairie corridor, Opitz said.

BRT systems, which Opitz said have been successful in cities such as Kansas City, Mo., use dedicated lanes solely for bus use. The lanes can either be elevated to avoid stoplights or constructed at grade level, usually in the medians of major thoroughfares.

City and state officials have talked in the past of including a connection to a BRT or commuter rail link at the yet-to-be-determined site of a high-speed rail station. Opitz said the RTA’s priority is ensuring a strong bus system that additional transit resources support.

“Regardless of whether commuter rail or Bus Rapid Transit happens in the future, we will always maintain feeder buses and have a strong bus system,” Opitz said. “Even if commuter rail is introduced, there will still be a very strong bus system separate from the commuter rail but also linked to it.”

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk appointed two county officials to the RTA board, along with Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, Middleton Mayor Kurt Sonnentag, Sun Prairie Mayor Joe Chase and Fitchburg Mayor Jay Allen, who each appointed two officials from their cities.

Falk said she sees further transportation expansion as an important part of Dane County’s continuing growth.

Falk said Dane County, which is the fastest growing county in Wisconsin, is in critical need of a transit plan to efficiently move the nearly 100,000 commuters between Madison and its suburbs.

She also said the RTA will address funding issues before making any decisions about future transportation.

“Dane County is growing extremely fast — our population and our economy,” Falk said in an e-mail to The Badger Herald. “There is a lot of work to be done before any kind of a regional transportation system becomes a reality.”

The RTA decided in its only resolution at its first meeting to put a sales tax increase of one half-cent before voters some time later this year.

Opitz said the RTA, which has state-granted authority to raise the sales tax with or without voter approval, decided to present the increase to voters in a way that gets a positive reaction.

If voters approve the sales-tax increase, Opitz said, the RTA would use the additional funds to support new operations and possibly the new construction of a commuter rail or BRT line.

If voters defeat the proposal, the RTA board will likely redraft the sales-tax increase proposal and send it back to voters, Opitz added.

In the future, Opitz said multi-million dollar projects whose costs would exceed the funds raised by an increased sales tax would likely go through an application process for federal grants.

The location and date of the next RTA meeting have still not been determined. RTA member and Downtown Madison, Inc. President Susan Schmitz said the meeting would likely be held next month.