With the VA Butler Healthcare Center relocating in Center Township, it is the right time for the Butler Transit Authority to invite Center Township to join the authority.

The current members, Butler and Butler Township, pay local match fees for the federally funded bus service, according to executive director John Paul. Outside their boundaries, any organization seeking bus service must pay its own fee.

Having Center as a member would mean that the township would pay for services instead of the individual organizations like Clearview Mall or the new VA center.

“Basically, they’re getting service to their township through entities that are located in Center Township, versus just making it clean and having the township providing the local match and becoming a member of the authority as growth continues,” Paul said.

Growth will continue and demand for bus service will grow: that’s a certainty. Center officials already have asked neighboring municipalities to endorse a Tax Increment Financing District designation for property adjacent to the new VA complex. The property would offer temporary tax breaks for companies that have an interest in locating near the VA.

At stake are dozens, maybe hundreds of jobs in addition to the jobs already coming with the opening of the new VA Healthcare. At least some of those employees and their clients will need regular bus transportation.

It would be prudent for township officials to secure the bus route now on behalf of all of them. Increased tax revenue from new businesses, payroll income, shopping and residential construction will more than make up the township’s expense.

There are, however, two troubling details.

The first is that Dave Zarnick, president of the Butler Township commissioners, was the one who raised the nonagenda item at the authority board’s meeting Tuesday night.

Five months ago, Zarnick and the other Butler Township commissioners made it clear they would not support the TIF, saying it would take property tax dollars away from Butler Township for investment in Center Township business development. The commissioners also came out against a proposed PennDOT project that would complete the unfinished cloverleaf at the intersection of Routes 356 and 422 in Butler Township to create a bypass around the Lions Road Bridge. They said it would hamper emergency services.

Those arguments don’t float. Combined, the completed cloverleaf and TIF development could unleash a generation’s worth of economic growth that benefits the entire region, not just any one municipality.

It would be in the region’s best interest to add Center Township to the authority — and contrary to Butler Mayor Tom Donaldson’s suggestion, they should have representation.

The second troubling detail is this: Technology and innovation that have rendered many services obsolete in the past could be in play now. In San Francisco, the transportation upstart Uber is testing a new service it calls “smart routes.” The new wrinkle in ridesharing is for passengers to meet up at stops along a predesignated route, and save at least a dollar off their fee.

“Stops” along a “predesignated route” sounds a whole like a bus service — without all the expense of a big bus or full-time drivers. It’s our bet that smart routes will be found in Pittsburgh soon.

Transit authorities across the country need to pay attention to services like Uber and consider what it means for them.

As Mayor Donaldson himself pointed out Tuesday, “The transit authority is expensive to operate. It costs the city a lot of money, the township a lot of money, and traditionally, no matter where you’re at, seems to have financial problems.”