The Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority (TBARTA) will host a community workshop on regional transit service for Sarasota County residents from 5:30-7:30 p.m., Thursday, July 24, at the Venice Community Center, 326 S. Nokomis Ave., Venice.

Another workshop in the Sarasota-Manatee area will be held from 5:30-7:30 p.m., Wednesday, July 23, at the Lakewood Ranch Community Room, located in Northern Trust Bank, Suite 203, 6320 Venture Drive, Bradenton.

• The workshops will be open-house style, which means that participants can come anytime during the two-hour period.

The two workshops are among seven scheduled in July and August throughout the West Central Florida region, which also includes the counties of Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas.

TBARTA also will host two online community workshops: from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., July 22; and from 6-8 p.m., Aug. 6.

The purpose of this round of workshops is to solicit input on the second phase of the master plan development. During the first phase, public comments were received about where transit service should be located to serve regional transportation needs. For this second phase, TBARTA is asking what type of transportation mode is best for each of the transportation corridors. Among the transit mode options under evaluation are bus rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, managed lanes and waterborne transit.

TBARTA was created by the Florida Legislature in 2007 to plan and develop a multimodal transportation system that will connect the seven counties of the Tampa Bay region.

For more information about the workshops or the master plan, visit the Web site, www.tbarta.com. Click on the “Meetings” tab to locate the link for the online meetings.