The Bend City Council could weigh in on a plan for the future of the public bus system as early as March.

City employees, along with a committee that includes members of the community, are putting the finishing touches on the plan. It will likely include the long-term possibility of extending bus service to Colorado Avenue in southwest Bend, where Oregon State University-Cascades Campus hopes to expand into a four-year university.

“Clearly if OSU Cascades expands as they plan, that would be an area to expand service,” said Mayor Jim Clinton on Monday. However, Clinton said, “the problem continues to be not only how to pay for expanded service, but existing service.”

In the short-term, certain changes could improve bus service at no additional cost, said Scott Aycock, a transportation planner for Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council. The council operates Cascades East Transit, which runs buses in Bend and throughout Central Oregon. The city pays roughly $1 million annually for Cascades East Transit to operate bus routes in Bend, according to figures the city provided.

Currently, there is no long-term plan for how the bus system should operate in the future. The draft plan will be fully finished in a couple of weeks, Tyler Deke, Bend Metropolitan Planning Organization manager, wrote in an email on Monday. City employees will update city councilors on the plan March 6.

Aycock said one of the short-term changes that will be proposed in the transit plan would improve service around St. Charles Bend. Buses in Bend generally run every 40 minutes on weekdays, but on Route 5 in northeast Bend buses run at 50-minute intervals at certain times of the day. That is because Route 5, which serves St. Charles Bend, is popular with riders and many people are in wheelchairs, so it takes longer for riders to get on the bus and disembark, Aycock said.

“If they get on the bus at those times of day, they no longer have a good transfer to the rest of the system,” Aycock said. Planners realized they could solve this problem by connecting Route 5 with nearby Route 6, where buses have a bit of extra time in their schedules. Aycock said a public meeting will be scheduled before the draft plan is finalized.

“This is something we can do right now,” Aycock said. “It doesn’t cost any money.”

Cascades East Transit has already implemented at least one of the short-term ideas that arose during meetings on the transit plan. The agency in November began providing bus service to Deschutes River Woods, south of Bend, Aycock said. A CET bus that connects Bend and La Pine now includes a stop at the Riverwoods Baptist Church.

Aycock said a future direct route to the planned four-year Oregon State University-Cascades Campus is not a sure thing.

“This is all contingent upon developing some form of partnership with them, most likely a student pass type of program,” he said.

Aycock said local officials also need to have a broader discussion about how to pay for public transportation in the future, and the Bend transit plan and a regional plan for Central Oregon will provide the foundation for this discussion, starting as soon as this summer.

Clinton said one possible way to pay for public transportation in Bend and other areas could be to ask voters to form a public transportation taxing district. “We should consider all the options in the next few years,” Clinton said.