Will students, commuters take the bus? - CLIF LeBLANC, the State

Plans are rolling to attract suburban commuters and U South Carolina students to metropolitan Columbia’s bus system, but the relationship-in-the-making will require wooing — and someone to pick up the check. Derrick Huggins, the bus service’s new temporary director, is seeking federal money to finance a scaled-back version of a so-called “park and ride” plan devised more than a year ago. The ambitious proposal calls for new Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority buses to ferry commuters from Newberry, Camden, Batesburg-Leesville and Blythewood into downtown Columbia. Riders would leave their cars at parking stations along major feeder roads and move around Columbia on CMRTA buses.