CONCERNS — A man waits inside the bus shelter installed by Weirton Transit Corp. at the Harmon Creek Park’n Ride in Weirton. Use of the site has become a point of contention between Steel Valley Regional Transit Authority and Weirton Transit. -- Linda Harris

STEUBENVILLE — Steel Valley Regional Transit Authority operators said Friday their service to Weirton can’t be restored until a safe, weather-protected ADA-compliant transfer point is established.

SVRTA Transit Manager Tim Turner said they had been operating under a gentleman’s agreement to drop off passengers in downtown Weirton at Mary H. Weir Public Library until an adequate transfer point meeting those requirements was available — either at the Harmon Creek “Park’n Ride” or, potentially, at a new retail development at Weirton Shopping Plaza off Penco Road, but he said Weirton Transit Corp. abruptly served notice that the agreement had been terminated and they were contemplating legal action if they continued to bring SVRTA buses anywhere in Weirton but the park-and-ride.

Turner and Operations Manager Jerry Thomas said he checks progress regularly at the park-and-ride, and doesn’t consider it to be safe or ADA-compliant. He said it’s not well lit, which poses an inherent risk to riders in and of itself, and the site isn’t wheelchair accessible. The shelter “is not really a shelter, it’s a place to sit. It’s perforated metal, you’re not being sheltered from wind, rain, snow or anything like that. If they’re waiting at the library like they’ve always done, they can stay warm/cool or out of rain, and safe. Everything is about safety here.”

“We’ve been in negotiations with them for two years. We had a verbal agreement,” Thomas said. “They wanted us out of the city, they wanted us out of the downtown. They wanted us at Harmon Creek Park’n Ride, but our concern back then was isolation — elderly people, people with medical conditions … would there be shelter, would the shelter be ADA compliant where anybody we transport over there would have a safe place to get out of the elements? It would have to be ADA compliant, because it would be a new shelter, so it wouldn’t be grandfathered in. Somebody in a wheelchair would have to be able to get in, and other people would have to be able to get in and sit down.”

Thomas said it wouldn’t make sense to leave someone who is “70, 80-years-old (at a transfer point) with no lighting, the only lighting is across the street where they store salt.”

Additionally, once passengers got on or off the bus, he said WTC wanted the SVRTA drivers to do a U-turn and immediately return to US Route 22. Given traffic movement, both off the ramp and from Harmon Creek, that could be problematic, particularly in winter weather. He said they’d need a spotter to back the buses up, and have deep concerns about the wisdom of trying to cross three lanes of traffic with buses full of riders.

Weirton Transit officials discussed the issue during their board meeting Wednesday, acknowledging they had been negotiating a memorandum of understanding between the two agencies which would include the Harmon Creek Park’n Ride.

WTC Board President Jeff Wargo claimed issues over the site have only recently come up, despite negotiations taking place for several months. Wargo said WTC had installed the shelter, including lighting inside of it, and asphalted an area around the structure to make it more accessible.

“They have pretty much refused,” Wargo said. “They are insisting on coming to the library.”

Phil Gilcrest, who last week was named the new WTC transit manager, said other lighting in the area is maintained by the West Virginia Department of Highways.

Calls made to WTC on Friday for additional comment were not returned.

Thomas said when SVRTA launched its new routes last week, WTC threatened them with legal action. “They said our operating schedule hadn’t been agreed on,” he said, “But we had a verbal agreement Sept. 14 to continue going to the library. A matter of fact, their transit executive said because of the work they were doing there, we should go to the old Kroger and turn around.”

When they came to that agreement, however, “We were only there three times a day,” Thomas said. “With the new routes, we were there 11 times a day, and all of a sudden, they told us to go nowhere but the Harmon Creek Park’n Ride.”

“We’re not looking to compete with them, all we want is to be a good partner,” he added. “I can’t speak to what happened in the past, but we’ve operated in good faith since we’ve been here. We’re only asking for a safe place that folks can (wait for buses). In that meeting on Sept. 14, they said they were trying to move the transfer point to where the new Aldi’s and Big Lots are going in — they’re so well lit, people would feel safe and wouldn’t feel isolated. We were encouraged.”

Thomas said SVRTA “doesn’t want to pick up people on Main Street and take them up on the hill. The only mission we have is to take people from Steubenville to Weirton so they can take them wherever they want to go in Weirton. We offer service to Robinson, so anybody in Weirton who wants to go to Robinson, we can take them up there and bring them back to Weirton.”

“If they only allow us to go to Harmon Creek Park’n Ride, I can’t do that safely, they haven’t met their obligations yet,” he added. “If they met that obligation, I’d resume service in a heartbeat.”

Turner said the two transit systems “should be complementing each other, not fighting. We should be enhancing each other’s systems.”

“Mobility is freedom for people, that’s what we’re here for,” Thomas added, “to get them where want to go. That’s what public transport is for in my opinion, and in the opinion of the FTA.”