Amid budget reduction discussions by the Frederick County Commissioners, TransIT services are ready to change.

TransIT has listed three services that will be discontinued effective July 1, and one to be reduced.

TransIT Director Sherry Burford said several factors were involved in choosing which options to cut.

"We evaluated all of the services that TransIT operates and selected service reductions that would have the least impact on customers and save the most County funds," she said in an e-mail.

-- Eleven trips operating each Saturday betweenFrederick and Walkersville on the No. 65 bus will be eliminated. Burford said the Saturday bus carries about half of the passengers it typically gets Monday through Friday.

Weekday service will continue to operate as scheduled, a TransIT release said.

-- Frederick 's Meet-the-MARC Shuttle, scheduled to meet three evening MARC trains during the week, are set to be discontinued because of low ridership.

As an alternative to the shuttle, Burford said MARC commuters may be able to use the Connector routes to get from the train station to their destinations. The Walkersville and Point of RocksMeet-the-MARC shuttles will continue as scheduled.

-- Certain holiday peak-hour Connector bus services will be canceled, including service on Martin Luther King Day, Presidents Day, Good Friday, Columbus Day, Election Day, Veterans Day and Christmas Eve.

Though that peak-hour ridership -- three trips in the morning and afternoon -- is not significantly lower on holidays, the organization has proposed its elimination to cut costs, Burford said.

The regular Connector bus service will continue to operate on other holidays.

-- TransIT-plus demand response transportation for senior citizens and disabled people will be reduced from about 120 service hours per day to 106 hours. The service is 75 percent funded by county dollars, Burford said, so the reduction in hours is being proposed to save money.

Service will continue from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, but the number of passengers served will be reduced. This may result in the denial of some trip requests and fewer passengers served each day, the TransIT release said.

"There are alternatives for several of the proposed reductions, although the alternative may not be as convenient," Burford said in an e-mail. "We may have to deny some (demand response) trips if we cannot schedule the ride at an alternative time."

Between almost $248,000 in county funding and more than $150,000 from grants, TransIT's total budget reduction is almost $340,000.

*This article was originally published in The Frederick News-Post on April 8, 2010.