Annapolis buses will soon stop running to BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, ending one of the most expensive bus routes for taxpayers and one of the cheapest ways to get out of town. News of the looming closure came Tuesday, less than 24 hours before Mayor Josh Cohen also announced that the city has joined with the Community Transportation Association of America to analyze the city's transit system, parking, traffic and transportation planning to find inefficiencies and save money.

For the next year, the Washington, D.C.-based association, which is providing its services for free, will study how the city's bus system runs and suggest improvements.

Barbara Rasin Price, a CTAA founder, said the organization will likely take stock of the city's transit systems and find frugal ways to improve them.

"I kind of think of it as a transportation makeover," said Rasin Price, who was also chairwoman of the Transportation Committee on Cohen's transition team.

Before the association finishes its work, Cohen said he plans to shut down the C-60 bus, the most expensive route per mile of the eight lines the city operates.

In addition, the city will move from a "pulse" system, where all buses stop at the Spa Road transfer point, to an "arterial" system with stops on major roads.

"We need to focus on the routes with the most ridership," Cohen said.

The C-60 departs from the Spa

Road transfer point six times per day and completes a two-hour circuit. For $1 a passenger can ride to Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. For $3 riders can go the Cromwell Station Light Rail in Glen Burnie, and for $4 they can go to BWI or Arundel Mills mall.

It will take several months to end the route, which costs nearly $300,000 per year to operate but collects $20,600 in revenue, Cohen said.

In the meantime, the association will help the city find partnerships with other governments and organizations as well as funding, said Scott Bogren, CTAA spokesman.

In the next year there will be a major transportation summit in the city that will cull the expertise from various professionals around the country with the goal of creating a new transportation plan for Annapolis, officials said.

"Even serving what we currently serve, I know we can do a much better job serving our city's residents," Cohen said.

The CTAA has previously helped other cities like Annapolis, and they're all facing similar troubles, Bogren said. Many are scraping for funds, reducing services and raising fares, and these changes have unintended consequences such as keeping people from getting to work and receiving health care, he said.

"Transit and the benefits transit creates in a community need to be better communicated," he said. "Transit is more than helping people move."