Even as a study of its Bowling Green-based GO bg Transit bus service is being conducted, Community Action of Southern Kentucky is looking to add to the services it provides.

Carroll Duckworth, who was hired last year as CASK’s director of transportation services, has organized a meeting at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the CASK offices on Beauty Avenue to share information and gauge interest in the nonprofit agency’s plan to begin providing public transportation to a larger region.

“We’re exploring the possibility of providing transit services in nine counties where we don’t currently have transit service,” he said. “We know there are no transit providers in those areas except for private enterprises. There are all sorts of reasons for doing it. We should’ve been doing it all along.”

Duckworth said CASK is applying for federal funds awarded for providing transit service in rural areas. His plan includes areas of Warren County not currently served by GO bg Transit and these counties: Allen, Barren, Butler, Edmonson, Hart, Logan, Metcalfe and Simpson.

The application for funding from the Federal Transit Administration must be submitted by the end of the month, Duckworth said. He said CASK already provides other types of services in the nine counties, so a rural transit system is a natural.

He said the service could utilize smaller vehicles than those used by GO bg Transit. The service provided could be different as well.

“It could involve fixed routes, or it could be more of an origin-to-destination service,” Duckworth said. “We would take people directly to the doctor’s office and then back home, for example.”

Duckworth said preliminary discussions with officials in the surrounding counties have revealed some interest in such a service.

Go bg Transit already receives $1.2 million per year in FTA funding and $430,000 from the city of Bowling Green to operate its six routes.

That service, along with Western Kentucky University’s Topper Transit service, are being analyzed in a $125,000 study being done by Pittsburgh-based Michael Baker International.

The study is evaluating Topper Transit operations and the management structure of GO bg Transit while also exploring a possible merger of the two systems.

Since Duckworth came on board, GO bg Transit has added a second tier of managers that includes five positions: fleet manager, customer service manager, route manager, administrative assistant and grant/compliance coordinator.

Ridership is on the rise for GO bg Transit, Duckworth said, after CASK abandoned the route-change recommendations of a previous consultant’s study.

But the staff changes and ridership growth could be for naught if MBI recommends a merger of the two bus systems.

Patty Dunaway, an executive with MBI’s Louisville office, said the consulting firm has experience helping merge overlapping transit systems in larger cities.

“It isn’t common, but where two systems have overlap or serve the same communities of people and there are potential opportunities to improve service and create efficiencies, then sometimes communities want to examine it,” she said.

The timetable calls for MBI to complete the merger feasibility study by May 15 and then make recommendations.

“We will look at the pros and cons (of a merger) and see if there would be cost savings,” Dunaway said. “We will make a recommendation, but it may or may not be followed.”