During the 2004 Legislative Session, WYTRANS was able to educate our legislators about public transportation and serve as a strong advocate for the public transportation providers and the clients we serve. WYTRANS efforts were rewarded with $1 million dollars.
     Legislation is an arduous process that began with discussion by the WYTRANS board members about the continued need for more money to operate our transit systems. We then set up a meeting with the Transportation Commission who were supportive of our programs and understood the need for more public transit funding. Due to some conditions the commission faced, they couldn’t help us directly with funding.
     Ed Opella, Chair of the Transportation Commission, contacted Steve Kurtz a bit later about lending his help and support for an increase in funding. Mr. Opella contacted Representative Roy Cohee to see if he would help us. At a Highway User’s meeting held in Casper, Sean Solan, Marge Cole, and I visited with Representative Cohee about the need for more public transit funding, and we asked him for his help.
     Representative Cohee initially sponsored a bill to distribute $10 million dollars of operating funds over ten years. That bill was introduced in the House and was referred to the Appropriations Committee, who promptly reduced the funding to one million for one year. The committee members did this because they wanted to see how Wyoming was treated through the federal reauthorization of the Transportation Act (TEA-21). Funding for transit still has not been completed by Congress.