With the proposal of a fare increase for individual rides on Butler Transit Authority buses, the authority’s board of directors discussed the issue of enforcement at its meeting Tuesday, April 23.

Rebecca Black, solicitor for the authority, said at the meeting people who have repeatedly failed to pay the full bus fare are still taking rides because there is no policy in place to handle enforcement. While the board did not put a new policy into effect Tuesday, Black said she would like to look into ways of ensuring payment.

John Paul, executive director of the Butler Transit Authority, said bus drivers have either just let people continue riding the buses, or have paid part or all of the fare for riders who don’t have enough money.

Members of the board discussed different possibilities to hold free riders accountable, including tracking their deficit and banning them from riding once it reaches a certain amount. Black said transit authority administrators would like a solution to the issue that doesn’t put bus drivers in a difficult or potentially dangerous situation.

“We’ve had situations before where there were some people on buses that were kind of hostile, and me asking a driver to give somebody a notice that they are going to be suspended, I don’t feel comfortable with that,” she said. “My thought is to do something like have the drivers have almost like a ticket book where they say ‘Somebody doesn’t have the right fare. You can give us your name and address so that we can write it down, or you can leave the bus.’”

The board of directors approved a few purchases Tuesday. The transit authority is replacing the fare boxes in each of its buses for a cost of just over $45,000. Paul said with a fare increase potentially taking effect July 1, the boxes would make the payment process faster for riders paying with cash.

“It’s new equipment — they’re just manual — they are just basically metal,” Paul said. “The electronic ones are tens of thousands of dollars apiece, and with our size and what is happening, we decided to revert back to manual.

“We’re really hoping to move more and more people to that type of fare.”

The transit authority is also approved spending $43,500 to buy new radios, which will start communicating using a county-owned transmitting tower, which was less expensive than fixing up the authority’s “failing” communication tower.

“It was $1,100 less expensive to put our equipment on the towers,” Paul said. “We’re recommending that we purchase new radios for the vehicles … and just go off the county’s radio tower.”