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HomeNewsClarksville Mayor Kim McMillan re-elected Regional Transit Authority chair

Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan re-elected Regional Transit Authority chair

McMillan: ‘City must take a leading role in regional planning’

City of Clarksville - Clarksville, TNClarksville, TN – Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan has been elected to a third term as chair of the Regional Transit Authority Board of Directors.

Wilson County Mayor Randall Hutto was elected vice chair and Paula Mansfield, a governor’s appointee from Rutherford County, was elected secretary for 2017.

The RTA board, created in 1988 to plan and develop a regional transit system, consists of city and county mayors and community leaders from the nine-county Middle Tennessee region.

Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan
Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan

RTA members are Cheatham County, Davidson County, Dickson County, Montgomery County, Robertson County, Rutherford County, Sumner County, Williamson County and Wilson County.

“As our region grows and becomes more interconnected, Clarksville must continue to take a leading role in regional planning, especially transportation and workforce development,” Mayor McMillan said. “With the rapid population growth in Clarksville and Nashville, being part of regional leadership is a necessity, not an option.”

Mayor McMillan also serves as co-vice chair of the Middle Tennessee Mayors Caucus, a regional partnership of 40 mayors and county executives formed in 2009 to develop solutions to problems shared by communities across the region.

Mayor McMillan pushed to have Clarksville-Montgomery County added to the RTA in 2010, and her involvement on the RTA Board has produced tangible results for local commuters. Today, the Music City Express commuter bus service from Clarksville to Nashville is the largest of the nine regional lines in the RTA system, with a monthly ridership of 5,335, up 9 percent over the prior year.

Last November, the Tennessee Department of Transportation completed a new Park & Ride lot at Exit 11 for the commuter bus service, which serves some 220 workers from Clarksville who commute daily to and from offices near the Capitol.

RTA, which shares staffing with the Metropolitan Tranportation Authority, oversees the largest commuter vanpool program in the Southeast, facilitates thousands of carpools, and coordinates nine regional express bus routes and the area’s first regional rail project running from Lebanon to Nashville.

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