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The Regional Transportation Authority has hired a $48,000 consultant to get bus pullouts built on Tucson roads because the city Transportation Department doesn't have enough staff to get the job done.

A hiring freeze in the city, coupled with a wave of retirements last year, meant the city couldn't come up with a list of bus pullouts it would build in the next year, said Jim Glock, city transportation director.

When the regional authority noticed it didn't receive any funding requests, it hired a consultant to work on identifying the most-needed bus pullouts, said Gary Hayes, RTA executive director.

The consultant came up with four locations where the city will construct bus pullouts before June 2010.

More than 200 pullouts over 20 years were part of the promise to voters who approved the RTA transportation plan and funding in 2006. The pullouts allow a bus to pull out of a travel lane to load and unload passengers at bus stops so traffic doesn't back up behind the stopped bus.

The contractor is Michael Holder, a retired city transportation engineer, Hayes said.

He's working for the RTA at $65 an hour for up to 750 hours in a six-month contract, Hayes said. He already worked for three months, and his renewed contract extends through the end of October.

"If we didn't do this, it would be an expense the city would pick up," Hayes said.

The RTA reimburses local governments for the work they do, not just on constructing RTA projects but the planning and work hours associated with them, Hayes said.

"It's money that the city would have received had they done the work," Hayes said, so it's not costing taxpayers any more than the same pullouts would cost if designed by the city.

The money comes from $30 million designated for bus pullouts, part of the $2 billion transportation plan funded by a countywide half-cent sales tax.

The city has been in a hiring freeze for most positions for more than a year, so the exodus from a retirement-incentive package offered in 2008 left transportation and other departments shorter-staffed.

The Transportation Department opted to focus on larger, more time-consuming projects such as planning the Grant Road widening and the Downtown Links roadway connecting Barraza-Aviation Parkway with Interstate 10, Glock said.

"Our hands are full with bigger, larger, more complex projects. While pullouts are complex, they're not as big," he said.

The pullouts do take time to plan, because they require coordination with utility companies and property owners. Pullouts often require the city to buy land along the side of the road, and many utilities under the street surface have to be moved, making the projects more work than they seem, Glock said.

Because the RTA could front the planning costs by hiring Holder, it gets the projects done without spending extra money, Hayes said.

"We think it's a creative way to deliver projects for the RTA plan that voters approved," Hayes said.

The pullout projects the contractor will manage are:

• Westbound Congress Street in front of El Rio Neighborhood Health Center.

• Eastbound 29th Street at Craycroft Road.

• Northbound Craycroft Road at 29th Street.

• Southbound Flowing Wells Road at Roger Road.