SPRINGDALE — Joel Gardner just got here and the Ozark Regional Transit board has already started asking him for direction.
Gardner moved to Northwest Arkansas this week to take a job as director of Ozark Regional Transit, which manages public transportation in the region. On Thursday morning, board members tossed around ideas for modifying bus routes in Bentonville, adding a stop at Crystal Bridges, redirecting the Fayetteville-Bentonville express route serving NorthWest Arkansas Community College and discussed the details of service agreements and grant sharing with Razorback Transit, which serves the University of Arkansas.
“I’ve made three day trips up here before, so I’ve got some vague idea what and where some of these things are,” Gardner said. “I’ll figure it out pretty quick.”
Gardner already knows other titles such as the Federal Transit Administration, Regional Mobility Authority, Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department and Transportation Improvement Plan. He has worked for First Transit, the management company that runs operations for Ozark Regional Transit, since 2008. Before that, he was general manager for the startup bus system in Jonesboro.
Gardner replaces Phil Pumphrey, who was reassigned after a sales-tax proposal he supported was defeated at the polls in May. The measure would have dedicated money to public transportation in Washington County.
“It’s time to start fresh. We have a bit of a honeymoon period here, an opportunity to suggest things we might want to change,” said Craig Hull, a board member. “If we have some moves we want to make, let’s try to get them done instead of studying them for maybe next year.”
That led to discussions about how the Bentonville route stops at the square, several blocks from Crystal Bridges, and whether the express route to NWACC might add a stop there.
The express route can’t be modified because it gets federal money designated strictly for transportation of college students, said Jeff Hawkins of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission.