The Butler Transit Authority board of directors granted its drivers the authority to exclude service to passengers who cause immediate concern or safety issues while on board a bus.

Transit authority’s solicitor Rebecca Black said at a board meeting Tuesday, March 14, 2023, that recent events on buses have moved administrators to update its exclusion of service and disruptive passenger policy. The policy language now allows its contractors with MV Transportation to act in the best interest of safety if a passenger is being disruptive.

“We wanted to be able to provide MV with some security as well because they are the individuals that are ... encountering people that are causing problems,” Black said. “We wanted to give them the ability to take action if they believe there is an imminent threat or danger.”

The authority has always had policies in place that could result in a rider being banned from taking a bus for a certain amount of time. The board of directors also approved a change in language to the exclusion of service and disruptive passenger policy at a February meeting.

In addition to the update in policy language, the board of directors also discussed an Americans with Disabilities Act training meeting coming in May, where administrators will hear national updates to ADA law.

John Paul, the authority’s executive director, said meetings such as this take place every once in a while, and typically let transit authority administrators know of any changes to ADA policies.

“When something happens in another part of the country or another part of the state that warrants a change in how you have to deliver service, then we want to be complicit that we are doing that,” Paul said.

Black said these conferences help transit authorities across the nation share information efficiently.

“It’s just how to more efficiently implement the existing policies and make sure we are doing so consistently,” Black said. “When new case law is set up and says, ‘This is actually what that statute means,’ then it is more efficient for any agency to get a whole group of people together and tell them that this is how it should be implemented.”

Paul said the transit authority sold its trolley, which usually was used only in local parades, for $16,100 in an online auction.

Paul said the trolley was about four years past its useful life and it was seldom brought out of the bus garage.

“Our mechanic told us that to maintain that vehicle was going to be very difficult,” Paul said.