County hires company to conduct needs study for Straits Regional Ride

Kortny Hahn, Cheboygan Daily Tribune
·3 min read
The Cheboygan County Board of Commissioners awarded the bid for a transportation needs study for the Straits Regional Ride bus program at Tuesday's board meeting. The needs study and its reports should be done within the next six to nine months
The Cheboygan County Board of Commissioners awarded the bid for a transportation needs study for the Straits Regional Ride bus program at Tuesday's board meeting. The needs study and its reports should be done within the next six to nine months

On Tuesday, the Cheboygan County Board of Commissioners selected a company to complete an upcoming needs study for the Straits Regional Ride program.

The study will determine if any changes or route expansions are needed.

"This would be the award of the agreement to Mp2planning," said Cheboygan County Administrator Jeff Lawson. "We received four bids."

Three county staff members, including Lawson, Cheboygan County Finance Director Sue Buitenhuis, and Rebecca Charboneau, transportation director of Straits Regional Ride, went over each bid received. The bids were then scored by how closely they filled the requirements the county was looking for to have included in the needs study.

More: County looking into transit study for Straits Regional Ride

Once the county staff had completed scoring the bids, the information was then submitted to the Michigan Department of Transportation, which reviewed all the documentation and combined the scores. It was determined Mp2planning, LLC was the highest scoring among the contractors who returned bids.

It was recommended for Cheboygan County to award the bid to Mp2planning to complete the transportation needs and service plan study, in the amount of $64,745. This study is being funded through MDOT.

Lawson said it was not up to MDOT to determine which contractor firm to award the bid to, it was based on the aggregate scoring of the three staff members after reviewing the bids.

"Legal counsel will draft an agreement for presentation to the board at the August meeting," said Lawson.

Lawson said Mp2planning is a relatively small firm out of Muncie, Indiana. From what he could tell, when they do regional projects in other states, the company uses different consulting firms from the region surrounding the project for contracted work.

The individuals who will be performing the work on the study will either be from Indiana, or from the Northern Michigan region. One person working on the project, John Drury, worked for MDOT for almost 20 years and now owns his own consulting firm, JDrury Consulting out of Boyne City, and will be the lead planner. He also has performed the two most recent transit studies for Emmet County with the former EMGO program.

More: County accepts grants for Straits Regional Ride studies

The firm has done some work in the state before, including in Ottawa County. Buitenhuis said she was on a board in Ottawa County at the time this study was being completed and there were no issues with it and the study proved to be very helpful.

The Cheboygan County Board of Commissioners (from left) Roberta Matelski, John Wallace, Ron Williams, Curtis Chambers, Rich Sangster, Mike Newman and Steve Warfield approved awarding the bid for the Straits Regional Ride needs study.
The Cheboygan County Board of Commissioners (from left) Roberta Matelski, John Wallace, Ron Williams, Curtis Chambers, Rich Sangster, Mike Newman and Steve Warfield approved awarding the bid for the Straits Regional Ride needs study.

The county board voted unanimously to award the bid for the project to Mp2planning, LLC.

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The needs study will look at the current demand for the busing system around Cheboygan County, as well as the proposed future demand for the service. The consulting firm will also determine if there are any expanded routes the service can do to increase ridership, if hours also need to be expanded, and how to increase revenue coming in to the program.

Mp2planning will also be doing surveys of county residents and users of the busing program to gather thoughts on transit and how it could be improved. All of the work for the study is planned to be completed in six to nine months.

Contact Reporter Kortny Hahn at khahn1@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @khahnCDT.

This article originally appeared on Cheboygan Daily Tribune: Straits Regional Ride needs study to be handled by Indiana consulting firm