City Council tables new bus service contracts, approves construction of car-shade and lighting structures

The city of Maricopa’s new circulator and revamped commuter bus services will need to wait another week before becoming official as the contracts for both were tabled at last night’s council meeting.

“There were a couple technical issues with the contracts that needed to be ironed out, so we had to table the measure,” said Councilman Carl Diedrich.

All Aboard America LLC, is the company the city is looking at to operate both services at a cost of about $557k, with the majority of the funding coming through federal grants.

The city’s local circulator service, tabbed COMET, will loop through the city Monday through Friday from 9 am till 6 p.m., with a cost of $1 per trip.

Stops include the Maricopa Library, Walmart, Fry’s and other retail centers.

The commuter service, the MaricopaXpress or MaX, has operated the past two years sending three buses a day into the Valley, with two of those buses heading into downtown Phoenix and the third to the Tempe area.

However, the revamped service will lower the number of commuter routes to two, with both of those buses traveling to a Valley Metro substation at 44th and Washington streets.

In addition to the stop at 44th Street the bus also will drop residents off at the Tempe transit center, Mill and University, Mill and Broadway and Arizona Mills Mall.

The cost of the Max is $3 one way, with buses departing the city at 5:50 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and return buses picking up riders in the Valley starting at 4:29 p.m. and 5:29 p.m. at Arizona Mills Mall.

Though the possible approval of contract for the bus services will need to wait a week, the council approved the spending of $240,000 of American Recovery and Reinvestment funds for the construction of car-shade and lighting structures at the city’s new park and ride location, located at the intersection of Garvey Road and John Wayne Parkway.

In addition to these improvements the city also entered into an IGA, or intergovernmental agreement, with Pinal County, which will result in the county placing two bus shelters and four benches on the site.

The work on the Park and Ride structure is scheduled to be completed Nov. 1 and the new bus service is planned to begin Oct. 1.

While, the city council spent a large portion of the night dealing with bus issues, they also approved the purchase of a home to be torn down and made into parking spaces for the future senior center on Honeycutt Road, adopted a new parking ordinance and tabled a measure dealing with the sale of fireworks within city limits.

Max Local Route