A popular local transportation company could be exploring ways to potentially expand and make improvements to their current property. At Monday night’s city council meeting, Jacksonville aldermen passed a resolution to rezone property owned by The West Central Mass Transit District, which covers an area of 1118-1124 on West Walnut. Executive Director Jean Jumper explains why the property needed to be rezoned.
“We are looking to do some work on the property and the property is owned by the land lord. We realized the property is zoned differently from the services that we provide. After talking to Mr. Hall and other people in the department, we needed to rezone for what was properly going on here. That’s what’s been going the last couple of weeks” said Jumper.
While WCMTD’s property is being rezoned, potential plans for expansion would be sometime in the not-so-distant future.
“We do have some high hope for a future project here and we have a grant and offer for some capital improvements but we are pretty far way from anything being concerete enough for us to talk about at this time. The grant has been submitted it is at IDOT and we are waiting for something from IDOT to see if we are approved, it is a capital grant. I do have some plans but it all depends on how it goes through the processes ” Jumper said.
As reported previously, West Central Mass Transit had to temporarily limit its hours of operation due to a lack of state funding, which the transportation company relies on as their source of money. However, after several changes were made to Illinois laws pertaining to the funding of public transportation, Jumper says they’ve experienced much fewer issue when it comes to receiving state funds.
“Last year they passed a law, that money for transportation through out Illinois in rural areas has to got through the comptroller’s office and bypass the general revenue fund,it is dedicated funds for transportation. Since that has happen, our funding has come in very steady pace, which has allowed us to do what are supposed to be doing and that is provide a service to the community” said Jumper.
West Central Mass Transit District provides safe affordable transportation services to the six county area including: Morgan, Scott, Brown, Pike, Cass and Schuyler. WCMTD started in 2004.