SUMMERVILLE - People in this bedroom community think a commuter train to Charleston is a wonderful idea. And they wonder if they would use it.

"It's a great suggestion," artist Mary Ann Bridgman said. "I tried to figure out this morning how to get from the Visitor's Center to (her gallery on) East Bay Street. If you're only going to go to the Visitor's Center, it doesn't really help."

Dick Peterson used to drive a commuter van with six or seven riders from downtown Summerville to work at the Medical University of South Carolina in downtown Charleston. But that was in the early 1980s with gas prices soaring. As prices dropped, so did the riders.

Before he retired last fall, the Knightsville resident drove the 35 miles alone in a traffic-clogged, two-hour commute. He wondered if he would have found it less hassle to drive to a Summerville depot, pay to hop on a train, then hop on a bus downtown.

"I think people generally like to have a car so they can go right to and back," he said. "They'd just be weighing it back and forth."

With a study released this week, the Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority became the latest in a long, steely line of agencies and businesses to look at establishing local rail service along the 22 miles from Summerville to Charleston.

The commuter train, which would cost about $46 million according to the CARTA plan, would stop in downtown Summerville, at the Centre Pointe shopping mall off International Boulevard Avenue in North Charleston, and at the Visitor's Center on the Charleston Peninsula, using active and idle rail lines already laid. The study estimated more than 3,000 people would pay a $3 fare to use it in the early stages.

That's not a given. How many use the train likely would be decided, as Bridgman suggested, by how quickly, easily and economically riders could get to and from the stations to where they want to go. The CARTA bus system has been plagued by financial problems and route cutbacks because of low ridership.

In a news release Friday, Will Hutto, Berkeley Charleston Dorchester Rural Transportation Management Association executive director, said the CARTA plan won't be an option for rural residents unless they have more alternatives than to park and ride. RTMA is holding public meetings on its own plans for expanding its routes and tying in to CARTA.

Howard Chapman, CARTA executive director, talks about plans for a $2 million remote parking lot for riders and a proposed $6 million to $8 million bus hub terminal on property CARTA owns near Centre Pointe. But those efforts are stalled by money difficulties.

Getting a train transit system going will take a regional effort among agencies and communities, and federal money, he said. The larger Charlotte metropolitan area has been trying to get a similar rail going for a decade. "Ten years is not out of the question to get something like this started," Chapman said.

Improving the CARTA bus system to handle commuter train riders "can get done. But you've got to start developing communities so they're 'transit friendly,'" he said, something that's not being done now.

And that presents another quirk to the idea of a commuter train for idiosyncratic Summerville: its relatively comfortable, suburban community might just be more inclined to ride the train to shop, dine or entertain out-of-town guests than to get to work.

The charm of it, not having to find parking downtown and the ease of a traffic-free, half-hour trip, interested Jan Weaver, who runs a hat business out of her Summerville home. The idea of a tourist train to Charleston ? designed as a replica of the "Best Friend" that ran the route in the 1800s ? was explored by Summerville civic leaders as recently as 2002. But it didn't get anywhere. Concerns ranged from the cost, to whether there was room for it on the busy artery track in and out of the Charleston port.

"Having rail transportation between Charleston and Summerville would be wonderful if we could figure out a way to make it work," said Jim Friar, Dorchester County economic development director.

To offer feedback

The Berkeley Charleston Dorchester Rural Transportation Management Association is holding public meetings to get feedback on expanding the bus system's routes and services to rural residents and developing new routes to tie into current Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority routes and its proposed rail service. Next week's meetings are:

Tuesday: 1-2:30 p.m., Dorchester County Human Development Board, 312 N. Laurel St., Summerville.

Thursday: 6-7:30 p.m., Dorchester County Human Development Board, 312 N. Laurel St., Summerville.

People who complete a comment form will be entered into a drawing for a $50 gift certificate from Target.

Reach Bo Petersenat 745-5852 or bpetersen@postandcourier.com.