[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Regional Transportation update

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Appelbaum, Matt


Colleagues – One final update on my various activities, this one on three regional transportation issues: RTD, Highway 7 coalition, and the WestConnect coalition.
 
First, RTD.  I updated you fairly recently on the Eco Pass issue, but I’d like to offer some thoughts about where I think we now stand with RTD since this may be my last update on these issues.  I won’t try to be overly politically correct here, although we of course need to continue to work with RTD and in fact have collaborated well on some items and continue to do so.
 
To recap a bit: during the past year we were quite successful regarding fare increases, marginally successful regarding BRT and other bus schedules but mostly we did not get what we wanted, and quite unsuccessful regarding Eco Pass fare increases.  We continue to work with RTD on BRT-lite routes, notably the Diagonal to Longmont.  Our city staff does a terrific job, managing to be simultaneously collaborative with RTD and also fairly direct about our requests, and have done excellent work analyzing RTD’s data and schedule plans.  We of course also continue to work very closely with the US36 MCC; while we perhaps don’t all have exactly the same priorities, the group has stayed together on all of the most important goals and it is critical that it continues to do so as we work with and lobby RTD and our state and federal delegations.
 
So, here are some specific thoughts on our ongoing efforts:

·        We need to keep pressing on BRT and related schedules.  This won’t be easy since it will be difficult to “prove” that people will use service that doesn’t yet exist, like Boulder Junction to Union Station or the airport.  The current service at BJ is quite inadequate to attract the ridership we need to make it a success, and the wonderful underground bus facility (for which RTD definitely deserves credit) is woefully empty of both buses and people.

·        Similarly, we need half-hour service to DIA.  These buses are always at least half to two-thirds full, and quite often standing room only (and I should know given the number of times I’ve taken this bus this year).  It would be best if half/some of the buses started at BJ, but the exact schedules can be worked out depending on need.

·        It seems to be that an underlying problem in both the BRT and DIA routes – along with the obvious fact that every additional bus run is subsidized and thus costs RTD money –is that RTD has a policy that determines the minimum ridership needed to keep a route going as well as the ridership needed to justify adding more buses to the schedule.  Obviously such a policy is needed, but I think the ratio needs to be reexamined; it now requires something like three or four times the minimum ridership and/or regular standing-room-only runs to justify adding buses.  That approach – and I believe that is essentially the current policy – allows underperforming routes to remain while essentially penalizing heavily used routes.  There simply needs to be more flexibility in the system, which admittedly is difficult given the massive land area RTD covers and the understandable desire to serve everyone to some extent.

·        And there still is, of course, the issue of getting BRT-specific buses for the US36 route.  RTD is, I believe, still examining this, but they are extremely resistant.  While our BRT isn’t “true” BRT because the lane is (quite appropriately) shared with other uses, we can certainly make it far more BRT-like with better buses, real-time arrival signage, wi-fi on the buses, etc.  We need to keep pressing for these items.

·        We – Boulder, that is – need to decide just how much local money we are willing to spend on transit (we now spend ~$2 million/year I think) to provide better service given that we get such a small portion of our RTD taxes returned to us.  (Note that it really isn’t quite so easy to determine that return; local in-city routes are pretty straightforward, but regional route expenses need to be allocated somehow, and we all benefit from a connected regional system.)  If we want more transit riders – and much better first/final mile connectivity – it sure seems likely that money will need to come from us (hence one of my main reasons for continuing to push for a head tax).  But it’s a bit
hard to justify our continuing to pay twice, essentially, for the same thing, and increasing service with our funds can give RTD yet another excuse for not providing better service with its money.

·        My previous update discussed Eco Passes in some detail.  To recap, RTD raised the pass rates without any clear justification
other than they needed the extra revenue to balance their budget and – my opinion only – they knew that we’d whine and then pay whatever they charged since we’re so supportive of and dependent on those passes.  It’s still astonishing that RTD claims they don’t have reliable Smart Card data, two years into the program using technology that’s been around for decades.  I’ve been assured by Dave Genova, RTD’s interim GM and a very smart and thoughtful person in my opinion, that RTD will indeed create a working group to fully examine the pass issues.  It will be essential that the right folks get on this committee and that all available data is accessible, including whatever Smart Card data does exist.  It will also be essential that we (and here I include the US36 MCC and our CU and business partners) have folks who understand
 how to interpret and analyze the data, and don’t get misled by RTD’s often self-serving analyses.

·        The other key Eco Pass issue, which I’ve also raised previously but must be repeated, is RTD’s insistence that any additional demand due to passes that requires RTD to run more buses must be funded by the pass providers.  That is simply absurd, and under no circumstances should we agree to it – no matter how much we want to increase pass use.  Many policies increase transit ridership, from the “negative” of charging for parking and/or limiting it to the “positive” of land-use decisions and better first/final mile connections.  In no other cases is the cost of providing additional service pushed back onto the entity that encouraged more riders, and it cannot be assessed against pass providers either.  I’d just add that while providing passes to everyone does seem like a good idea, it is critical that we not get so enamored of it that we cannot step back and understand the cost/benefit ratio and investigate other, perhaps better, methods of increasing transit mobility.  My personal preference for now would be to focus on in-city employees and not on a citywide – or countywide – pass program, unless it were priced very carefully to take into account the actual pass use and our city didn’t end up paying for everyone’s pass (which will almost certainly be the case).

·        RTD is, so far as I know, seriously working on BRT-lite on the Diagonal, but as always the key issue will be whether they will actually come up with the money to build and run that route.  We need to also get CDOT to help fund it.  There are several other excellent candidates for BRT-lite that came out of NAMS last year, and we need to make them a much higher priority than they are with both RTD and CDOT and not wait another decade before any of them might actually be implemented.

·        While the US36MCC and our partners have actively lobbied RTD over many of these issues, it’s clear we just don’t have the clout we need at this regional, elected body that covers the entire metro area.  It is delusional to think that we’ll be able to extract ourselves from the district and it’s not at all clear that would be to our benefit anyway.  It would be nice to imagine a scenario where RTD is required to return some significant portion of each taxing entity’s contributions in the form of transit service, but that too is not about to happen.  We should talk with our state legislative delegation to see if they can help out (I unfortunately won’t be able to attend the breakfast meeting
in December) in any way, which is pretty much limited to asking them to discuss our issues with RTD.  Note that the very worst thing we can do, in my opinion, is to whine about not getting NW Rail; as I’ve noted, rail here makes no sense and it continues to give RTD the “excuse” that since we’re getting rail they can’t give us other improvements because that would be “unfair.”  Absurd though that is – given that rail is many decades away and has absolutely no funding source – that’s how things sometimes go at
 RTD.

·        To end on perhaps a more positive note: we simply need to keep working with RTD.  We need to rely on the best data we can get and make the very best case we can.  We need to get more active partners, especially in the business community, and continue to work closely together.  We can make a difference, even if all-too-slowly and painfully, and with some new staff at RTD I hope that we’ll be able to improve our collaborative efforts with them.  I think that council should schedule a study session on all-things-RTD and transit early next year so that we all get up to speed on these various issues and how we can best effect the changes and improvements we desire.  And if I can arrange it, I’m going to try to meet with both Dave Genova and also with Shailen Bhatt, the new-ish head of CDOT, both of whom I know very well.
 
Second, the Highway 7 coalition.  This is pretty simple.  The various cities along Hwy 7 from Boulder to Brighton, and including Broomfield, Lafayette, Boulder and Adams counties, and others, have been meeting for some time about improving Hwy 7 and implementing some form of BRT-lite.  Since there is obviously a large commute into and out of Boulder along this major route, Boulder is very much involved in the conversation.  I’ve attended perhaps half of the meetings in order to show our strong support and get to know the other representatives, but as always our staff does pretty much all of the work.  This effort will presumably result in finding ways to collaborate with CDOT and RTD and getting funding from as many federal/state/regional/local sources as possible.  It ties into our transportation/transit efforts on East Arapahoe, and will become more and more critical to our efforts at reducing SOV in-commuting.
 
Finally, the WestConnect coalition.  I’ve provided some updates on this previously, and indicated that while it is clear that some of the coalition partners are determined to move ahead with the Jefferson Parkway, it is still essential that we are at the table since CDOT is a key partner and they are implementing and (mostly) funding a study of the area.  After much discussion, we, Boulder County and Lafayette (and others) were invited to take part, which we very much appreciated.  There is a political committee and a technical group – the latter doing most of the work of course, but some key issues do come before the political group.  Of importance now is setting the boundaries and priorities for the CDOT study.  As I’ve made clear previously, Boulder is not contributing money to this effort nor are we in any way obligated to support the outcome or the Parkway.  However, if we can help influence the CDOT study and ensure that it is done well, we can possibly have an impact on what the state will fund or consider as they plan for transportation improvements in this sector of the metro area.  Not surprisingly, other efforts to build the Parkway continue, but the work by CDOT and this coalition will
 likely still be valuable and important, and I think we need to remain very active participants.
 
--Matt