SOUTH PORTLAND – With South Portland Transportation Director Tom Meyers set to retire at the end of the month, the city has hired a replacement to serve on an interim basis while it eyes a merger of its public transit service with Portland Metro and the Biddeford-Saco-OOB ShuttleBus.

Arthur Handman of Gorham began work Monday and will work alongside Meyers until taking the reins July 1. Handman, the chairman of the economic development corporation in Gorham, where he’s lived for the past decade, was executive director of the Greater Hartford, Conn., transit district from 1972 to 2005. He is also a principal in The “H” Group, a transportation planning, operations and management consulting firm founded in 2003.

A past president of the New England Passenger Transportation Association, Handman has been actively involved on the transit committee of the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation System, a regional transportation group in southern Maine.

“He’s been going to all of the meetings I’ve been going to for a while,” Meyers said last week. “He’s really familiar with what we’ve got going on.

“From the experience he has, he will add a lot of value to what we do and how we do it,” said Meyers. “He’ll be quick study on how we might adjust.”

That adjustment may well include the folding of South Portland’s bus service within the next year into a new regional program shared by eight municipalities: Biddeford, Falmouth, Old Orchard Beach, Portland, Saco, Scarborough, South Portland and Westbrook. On May 29 the Southern Maine Area Regional Transportation (SMART) steering committee capped a three-month study by voting unanimously to recommend the merger of the three existing transit programs serving those communities and announced plans to hire a consultant “by August” to formulate a cost-benefit analysis of the merger. That person or firm is slated to be paid by the Greater Portland Council of Governments, which manages the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation Committee, using a Federal Transit Administration grant funds.

Although a merger is not a done deal, South Portland City Manager Jim Gailey said last week the possibility did prompt him to contract a temporary replacement for Meyers, rather than hire a new, full-time director.

“It is somewhat crazy to have three independent bus companies running overlapping services in this area,” said Gailey. “If we were able to create efficiency through consolidation, that would be a good thing. So, I didn’t want to go out and hire someone and then all of a sudden we’re moving toward a consolidation. Right now consolidation is just a conversation we’re having, but I felt I needed to have some flexibility, in fairness to any individual I might hire.

“Having a short-term replacement who could do the job and Art can far and away do the job if you look at his background I felt that would be the best scenario for us for the next 12 months,” said Gailey.

Handman has signed a one-year contract paying him $45 per hour, said Gailey. That’s about $5 more per hour than Meyers made, although Handman will work fewer hours per week (35) and receive no health insurance or other benefits.

In one other local change, the waterfront duties that were folded into the transportation director post when Meyers took the job, including operation of the Portland Street Pier, the Fore River Boat Launch at Bug Light Park and Thomas Knight Park Landing, have been transferred to the parks and recreation department, under Director Rick Towle.

“Rick managed a significant amount of waterfront assets at his previous job in Talbot County, Md.,” said Gailey. “He has the ability to take it over and the public shouldn’t notice a change.”

However, Towle said Monday that he hopes by next summer to find a private partner to offer canoe and kayak lessons to the public at the boat launch. He also wants to promote greater use of the Thomas Knight Park Landing that Meyers helped create.

“Right now that’s a hidden gem,” said Towle. “It’s a wonderful resource that, once people find out about it, we’re going to have the other extreme. I think Tom Meyers needs to be recognized for the massive accomplishments he made with so little resources. I just hope we can continue that great work.”

City Councilor Patti Smith also praised Meyers on Monday, saying he “has done a fabulous job of turning people on to buses.”

Still, she said, the merger recommended by the SMART group appears to be the future for local riders.

“I think a lot of us who have been watching the bus service have said it’s just a matter of time,” she said. “I think trying to serve the needs of the greater population of this area is best served if we have a consistent solution.

“Not only that, but it seems there may well be a greater pool on the federal side to service an area instead of a town. South Portland is a rarity in Maine to operate its own bus service. I think we are one of the last holdouts. However, because we get good value for money, it’s going to be hard to leave that model. I’m afraid if we go regional, we might see an increase in fares.”

Smith also raised the idea that a late reduction in size of the Public Services Complex proposed for Highland Avenue may have been best, if bus consolidation is in the offing. Although the 23,500-square-foot cut in space in what was to have been a 65,000-square-foot garage was made largely to bring the necessary borrowing down to $14 million, Smith said, the reduction means voters may end up not having to later build back up to the original size, if the bus fleet is moved to another home under a shared service model.

However, Gailey said the cost of building a regional transit facility could be a deal-breaker “unless a significant amount of federal funds are received.” Because Metro has “very limited space” at its site on St. John Street in Portland, both South Portland and Shuttlebus/ZOOM “will have to keep something along the lines of a facility,” said Gailey.

“Ultimately, we want to be able to do what we are doing now for less cost, or else feel confident we can achieve better service for the same cost,” said Meyers, who played a large part in the ad hoc working group of transit officials who recommended the merger to SMART. “But it is going to take eight or 10 months to a year before that decision can be made.”

On Tuesday, Mike Barnes, an 18-year driver for the South Portland bus service, said the feeling among his peers has long been that a merger “is inevitable,” although he said the three bus systems seem “pretty seamless” already, in terms of the rider experience. The real question, he said, is whether a consolidated service might also consolidate jobs.

“It’s way too early to talk what the employee situation will look like,” said Gailey. “The next phase of the review will look at this item.”

Meanwhile, in addition to minding the store, Handman will complete rollout of three initiatives launched by Meyers. One is construction this fall of the Mill Creek Transit Hub, to be built near city hall at the corner of Ocean and Thomas streets. Built largely with federal grant money Meyers secured in 2010, but delayed by sewer and street construction in the Knightville area, the project was awarded to Doten Construction of Freeport – the low bidder at $305,000 – at the June 17 City Council meeting.

Handman’s budget also includes a late $120,000 budget hike Meyers won from the City Council that allows the hiring of two new bus drivers. A review of bus routes will determine whether the expansion means a new route or just more frequent runs over established routes, said Handman.

The next six months also will bring the launch of an “automatic vehicle locator” that, eventually, will allow riders to track city buses using a smartphone app, allowing them to better judge when to be at a stop.

Mike Barnes, an 18-year veteran bus driver for South Portland, takes his charge on a turn through Legion Square Tuesday morning. An interim director takes over the 11-person transportation department July 1, while the city eyes a potential merger of its bus services with Portland Metro and the Biddeford/Saco Shuttlebus.One of South Portland’s eight public transit buses makes a stop on Hinckley Drive next to Mill Creek Park Tuesday morning.