Pay for Carson City bus drivers to increase

Carson City’s bus operator will be upping driver pay after experiencing trouble recruiting drivers for the city’s Jump Around Carson routes.

“We’ve had a rash of driver shortages and it’s threatened loss of service,” Graham Dollarhide, transit coordinator, Public Works, told the Regional Transportation Commission on Wednesday.

The problem, said Dollarhide, were low wages that compared unfavorably with other rates in the region.

The RTC agreed to split the cost of a $2 across the board wage increase with MV Transportation, Inc., the operator.

The RTC agreed to kick in $1 per hour per driver at a cost of $24,985.84 for the second half of the contract’s second year and $33,314.45 for the third year of the three-year contract.

Drivers will now start at $12 an hour, which is still lower than surrounding areas, including Douglas County where drivers start at $13.34 per hour and Washoe County, which recently bumped up starting pay from $12 per hour to $14.

The RTC also accepted the final right of way needed to proceed with the reconstruction of 2.5 miles of Sierra Vista Lane.

The final piece was a 1,400 foot section of road owned by the Bureau of Land Management.

The RTC approved a grant application for $260,892 in Community Development Block money to make handicap-accessibility improvements along College Parkway, between Carson Street and Northgate Lane.

Lucia Maloney, transportation manager, Public Works, told the RTC two grant applications to the Nevada Division of State Parks’ Recreational Trails Program were denied.

The city had applied for about $205,402 to construct a 10 foot-wide multi-use path from Appion Way to Clearview Drive and for $77,101 to repair the linear path from Roop Street to 5th Street/Airport Road.

Both projects are on hold while the city looks for a new funding source, Maloney said after the meeting.