There are plenty of ways the city and Kansas University could combine forces to run a single public transit system, a new report has found.

Now the question becomes whether the two groups trust each other enough to do so.

“A lot of this is going to come down to whether the city and the university can work together,” said Cliff Galante, administrator for the city’s public transit system, the T. “What I’ve learned about this community is sometimes those two groups get along really well, and sometimes it is a strained relationship.”

Consultants who are in the process of conducting a $150,000 study for KU and the city presented preliminary findings Monday. The report listed several ways the city could merge its public transit system with the student-operated KU on Wheels system and the new university-run park-and-ride system.

Among the merger scenarios:

¢ Combine the two systems and have it operated by either the city or the university’s parking and transportation office.

¢ Create a new joint public transportation policy board that would oversee the system but would report to KU and the City Commission.

¢ Create a new public transit authority that actually could be its own taxing entity and would have complete control over the new system.

Danny Kaiser, assistant director of parking and transit for KU, said he thought all the options would get strong consideration, although he said creating a new transit authority probably would not be feasible in the short term.

“I don’t know what will be chosen, but I do know that there is a high level of interest both on the part of the university and the city to do something significantly different than what we do today,” he said.

KU student leaders, though, will play a major role in any change. The KU on Wheels system, which has a ridership that is more than double the city’s system, is run entirely by a student organization.

Dan Boyle, lead consultant on the project, said his conversations with student leaders have indicated that they want to be careful about giving up too much control over public transportation options because students are the largest users of public transit in the community.

“The students are concerned about what happens to their control,” Boyle said. “They really do care about the system.”

A potential upside to consolidation for students could be that all students would be given unlimited access to the combined public transit system in exchange for a student fee that is paid by all KU students. A combined system also would make it more likely for new buses to be bought to serve the campus.

Some KU students who attended a meeting about the report at City Hall Monday afternoon said they were in favor of a combined system.

“I think it would make it much more efficient,” said Eric Anderson, a KU graduate student. “But eventually, everybody is going to have to make a leap of faith because everybody is going to lose a little bit of control.”

Boyle said his San Diego-based consulting firm would have the final report that would recommend changes to the systems available in November.

Another meeting about the issue will be at 4 p.m. today at the Kansas Union.