ST. CLOUD -- Metro Bus is kicking off a feasibility study that is expected to take half a year to complete. CEO Ryan Daniel says they'll be looking at the services they provide as well as their three locations, the Transit Hub, the Mobility Center, and their main headquarters.

He says they have 85 vehicles in their fleet right now, and if they were going to expand they'd need more room to do that.

Let's say for example we were looking at going into a new service area, say in St. Joe, more than likely we'd need to have more vehicles to be able to accommodate the new service area.  So, with that, do we need to open a new garage in another part of town?

Daniel says their highest users rates are in the St. Cloud State University area. They have lower volumes in Sartell and St. Cloud's Westwood neighborhood. Metro Bus just kicked-off a new on-demand service in Sartell Wednesday in an effort to increase ridership numbers in that community.

The Transit Hub in downtown St. Cloud is probably their most visible property. St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis, who also serves as the Metro Bus Board Chair, says it might make more sense to move that facility to the east side of St. Cloud near the train station.

We're really pushing east side development.  I think it would be great if we could have Northstar and maybe look at putting the hub there.  Maybe it's a smaller Transfer Station.

Kleis says the Transit Hub could be a nice addition to the east side, especially if efforts to bring the Northstar Commuter Rail to St. Cloud are successful.

Metro Bus is made-up of the communities of St. Cloud, Waite Park, Sauk Rapids, and Sartell.

MnDOT is the primary source of funding for Metro Bus.

The feasibility study is expected to be done by the end of June.

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