Set all your buttons, baby, as Jimmy Ibbotson likes to sing about "Con Games With Michael Conniff" on KNFO. The #1 talk show in the Golden Triangle from Aspen to Rifle to Vail is now available online full-time. Now that the original slogan "making the world safe for liberals" has achieved its mission, there is "liberty and justice for all" available on the Web right here on Aspen Post 24/7. So if you missed all or part of the show--or if you are exiled to your first home in a distant land--you now have a way to keep up with the cognoscenti as said Con Man continues into his fifth year "with liberty and justice for all." Move over, Rush. Foggedaboudit Hannity. There's a new boss in town.
Post blogger Casey McConnell hitt the road and went to Grand Junction for the Energy Forum and Expo. "According to Dr. Economides in 1973," he blogs, "the US was using oil to provide 86% of our transportation needs. Today we use 86% and everything is saying we will use 86% in 30 yrs. What? How can this be? Growing consumption needs will require larger amounts of oil to meet our needs and the notion of alternative fuels playing a large part of that are very minimal.... And we need to wake up to these facts in a hurry. We are looking at a century of oil use with a best case scenario of several decades before we can walk away from it."
Some kids in Rifle had their first taste of classical music thanks to the Aspen Music Festival and School outreach program. "Our first day started in Rifle where about 70 art students created works inspired by the trio's music," she blogs. "While the kids were quite shy in the 2 sessions, they warmed up to the group and shared some of their thoughts on the music. Most had never heard live classical music! I am very impressed with their work that will be displayed at the Thursday night concert at the Glenwood Springs Center for the Arts at 6:30-the snow gods be willing."
Posts filed under 'Rifle'
Now that the voters have approved the $180 million capital expansion of RFTA, and the associated doubling of annual expenses to $40 million, public officials are obliged to honor this mandate and move forward with the creation of the full Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. The opportunity for the public to influence the priorities by which additional sales tax collections are spent, beginning with a projected $6 million in new revenues next year, has come and gone.
Then again, there is reality.
Responsibility for RFTA is diluted amongst 8 different jurisdictions administered by 43 elected officials. Each board and council sends one representative to serve on the RFTA board, but the RFTA board does not ask any tough questions of their management team. The Executive Director of RFTA is a perfectly nice guy with a missionary zeal which makes him incapable of professional detachment. The public is bombarded by the local print media with a pro transit mantra, and we dutifully approve new funding requests almost automatically.
If RFTA is about to drive off a fiscal cliff, nobody will notice until we hear the crash.
Memo to all 43 elected officials in the RFTA service area:
Wake up and start paying attention!
However politically expedient it may be, or whatever your personal bias, the abandonment of your fiduciary responsibility while you ride on the transit bandwagon is a luxury we can no longer afford. Except for the freshly elected, all of you share responsibility for a $650,000 BRT planning effort which left out the basic information needed to determine if BRT should ever have been proposed. You didn’t bother to find out what the average occupancy is on valley bus routes, the actual number of bus runs currently at capacity, or whether recent service improvements have already addressed whatever overcrowding exists. You didn’t ask for ridership projections on the routes affected by the plan, or whether BRT will leave the existing local bus route along Highway 82 running virtually empty. The entire process was a massive malfeasance of oversight and due diligence.
Although the perception exists that a tough economy will increase bus ridership as individuals seek ways to save money, the one example we have for guidance does not support that view. In 2002, after the economic downturn caused by 9/11, ridership on RFTA’s fare producing routes declined by 11 percent.
From the $6 million sales tax increase voters just approved, $2.76 million per year could go to paying off bonds if RFTA issues the full amount authorized. That will leave another $3.24 million in new sales tax revenue for other expenses. Using 2007 costs and proposed 2014 service increases, we find that the additional $3.24 million income projected for next year will need to grow to $10.65 million in five years to cover the 2014 expenses. However unlikely that income growth seems, try the same exercise with an assumption for a recessionary 10 percent drop in fare and sales tax revenues, and RFTA is broke at whatever point they put their new bus service on the road.
The way forward is abundantly clear for any group of government officials concerned with honoring the public trust, making sound fiscal decisions, and working from solid information rather than ideological faith.
Take heed of the note in RFTA’s 2007 audit that, “The Authority's long-term plan has indicated a need to build reserves,” and do so.
Do not bond for any money beyond the $10 million expansion of maintenance facilities which RFTA claims they need regardless of the BRT plan. Consider bonding in the second year for an automated ticketing system and some bus stop improvements if tax income isn’t sufficient for outright cash purchase. Automated ticketing is one of the most obvious efficiency improvements, and could also be designed to provide the precise Boarding and Alighting ridership data needed to determine what other upgrades are warranted.
Delay any bus acquisition for the purpose of implementing the BRT system until you have gathered the ridership data you need to assess the value of the proposal. It is simply incredible that any public agency could propose hundreds of millions of dollars in expenditures based on the quality of the information currently available – and not be challenged by elected officials.
All of the above pales to insignificance compared to the need to look at transportation planning as a whole. BRT is a wildly extravagant luxury at a time of national economic crisis and critical local need. Even after the construction of a new maintenance facility, the remainder of the RFTA bonding authority is nearly enough to construct a new Entrance to Aspen. That such a basic infrastructure need could go unfunded in favor of a lavish transit plan intended to benefit a small fragment of the traveling public – a fragment that may not even exist – is very nearly criminal.
November 12th, 2008
The use of percentages for analysis can reveal much that is valuable, but even when the math is correct it is the context which determines whether the results are more misleading than informative.
If you sold two widgets last year, and four this year, you’ve gotten a 100 percent increase in sales! Unfortunately, you’ve still only sold four widgets.
If you go to a new area that’s never seen a widget, initially you may have a huge percentage increase in sales, but that will level off as you fill the demand for widgets. In a recent letter to the editor, the executive director of RFTA suggested that we need to go all the way back to 1987 to generate statistics with a broader perspective. That would allow us to find bus ridership growth percentages that actually exceed population growth percentages. The problem with this idea is that in 1987, valley service only extended as far as El Jebel.
The entire area from El Jebel to Glenwood Springs obviously had an untapped segment of the population whose transportation needs are suited to a bus, and they provided a fresh source of new ridership when the service was first introduced. In contrast, the current Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal will be an incremental service increase in an area where most of the transit clientele has been well served for over a decade.
The decade from 1997 to 2007 is the appropriate base period to determine what we might achieve with a major expansion in bus service, and whether the cost is proportional to the benefit, because the area served has been relatively constant during that time. We have previously established that during this period population in the RFTA service area grew by about 38 percent, bus ridership by 21 percent, and Operating and Maintenance (O&M) expenses increased by about 130 percent.
O&M expenses are generally as much as 80 to 90 percent of the total transit budget, and represent the nuts and bolts of getting the rubber on the road. Consequently, there is a close relationship between miles driven and O&M costs. During the same period in which O&M costs increased by 130 percent, RFTA reports increasing their total miles driven by 6 percent. Let’s call that a ratio of 21 to 1 between increases in costs and miles, and move on to what little we know about RFTA’s future assumptions.
The first full year of BRT system operation is expected in 2014, and RFTA projects that O&M costs will increase 100 percent, to about $40 million per year. However, RFTA also estimates that they will have increased their total miles by 53 percent, resulting in a plummeting ratio of 2 to 1 between costs and miles in the years before the full BRT plan kicks into high gear.
RFTA may be expecting some stunning reversal in recent trends in O&M costs, but the source of these savings is unknown. When asked for a pro forma of projected income and expenditures, RFTA provided a financial plan that ends in 2014, just at the point when the complete costs of the new system need to be known.
It currently costs about $31 million per year to operate both the RFTA and Snowmass Village transit systems, making this the second largest public expenditure in the area behind the school system. (The Aspen and RE-1 school districts = $42 million)
The 5 million passengers on the two bus systems replace something in the range of 2-4 percent of the private vehicle trips made in the RFTA service area each year. The disproportion between person trips made in private vehicles and those in mass transit means that to achieve just a further 5 percent reduction in vehicle trips would require bus ridership to increase by 2 to 3 times over current levels.
A 100 to 200 percent increase in bus ridership is not an achievable goal for such a mature service, and it seems doubtful that we are prepared to spend more on transit than we commit to education - just to make a negligible reduction in traffic volumes. But neither does there seem to be any awareness that this is the real context of support for expanded transit service.
Next: Part X
Where do we go from here?
October 29th, 2008
The information collection process for this series of articles began more than a year ago, and RFTA has been very patient and generally responsive to our requests. However, the data which has been most difficult for them to produce is the information which is most critical to our analysis.
After several unanswered requests for the average trip length of bus riders on the Highway 82 corridor, it was assumed that RFTA did not have such an estimate. They finally supplied their version of this statistic last week, only after our independent estimate was published in Part VII. The difference between the two is minor.
Having the trip length estimate provides us the opportunity to calculate the answer to one of the most fundamental questions regarding current conditions. What is the average occupancy of buses currently running along the corridor? Despite this being a core question which would presumably be among the first things asked by the RFTA board before proceeding with the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) expansion plan, RFTA has not determined average occupancy.
Using RFTA’s trip length estimate, and tinkering with the figures to account for such things as variations in the number of bus seats on a particular style of bus, the occupancy percentage could move a few points one way or another. Regardless, our basic conclusion from last week still stands - buses on the corridor route are, on an annualized average basis, running about one third full.
According to RFTA the important factor is that riders during peak hours in peak season are experiencing standing room only conditions, but they have not reported the number of runs affected or what portion of the entire service this number represents. Perhaps this information will be available next week in response to this article?
RFTA purchased or leased 17 buses in the last two years, but has not, in the space of three months of questioning, been able to quantify how much of this rolling stock represents new and additional seats which are now available to respond to the increased peak ridership demand. Perhaps this information will be available next week?
Whatever the status of the peak period situation, its relevance to the planned BRT system is extremely tenuous because BRT calls for increased service throughout the day. This point seems to have been missed even by the Federal Transit Authority (FTA), which is reviewing RFTA’s grant request. The FTA commented that “a few references are made to increases in supply that would result from the project, e.g. 17 bus trips per morning peak hour to 28 bus trips per morning peak hour, but no explicit mention of how demand meets this supply is provided.” If the FTA is skeptical about peak demand, the realization that the remainder of the proposed service expansion overwhelms any discernable need is probably not far behind.
RFTA’s response to the FTA was to cite the Corridor Investment Study (CIS) from 2003, perhaps the least credible source for ridership projections ever produced.
Just before last week’s article went to press, RFTA also provided the statement that “the last estimate of ridership that our consultants have provided specifically for Highway 82 corridor commuter ridership for 2017 is 3.12 million.” However, this new number was also preceded by the caveats that, “our consultants determined the travel demand model is not calibrating accurately and more effort would need to be expended so we can use it to realistically project ridership,” and “the Board of Directors decided to wait on expending any more effort on the model development until we hear back from FTA”.
The 3.12 million ridership figure, aside from being labeled inaccurate, is problematic as a means to determine what is being predicted for a ridership increase on the BRT route. The number is a composite which lumps in routes such as Snowmass Village/Aspen and Woody Creek/Aspen. While the Snowmass to Aspen route may indeed experience ridership growth as the result of making it a free service, it is not part of the BRT expansion plan.
If we borrow the basic assumption consultants made in their “last estimate” to calculate the percentage gain in riders for the next nine years, and apply it to the routes specific to BRT, we come up with about a 50 percent increase by 2017. Coincidentally, that percentage also happens to be about what the average occupancy would be on the existing bus service if it were to absorb that ridership increase.
RFTA doesn’t believe it can achieve its ridership goal without BRT, but the down side will be that the full schedule nature of the expansion will push average occupancy down to a point where buses will be running around about one quarter full.
The effort required to produce this analysis is absolutely without explanation. For the $650,000 the public paid for the BRT planning process, this information should be available on a summary page at the front of the report.
Next: Part IX
More things that make you go hmmmm.
October 22nd, 2008
The core premise for a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system on the Highway 82 corridor is that improved travel times will lead to huge ridership increases. There is no guarantee that one will lead to the other, so the real question is what we should gamble, and on which ideas, to find out.
Improved travel times are supposed to come from a variety of measures, and the Corridor Investment Study (CIS) from 2003 quantified the time savings for different components. Reducing the number of stops, known for generations as “express” service, was expected to shorten the travel time from Aspen to Glenwood Springs by 9 minutes, but there is nothing especially “BRT” about an express bus.
The more BRT-like features described as “Queue bypass lanes”, “Transit signal optimization”, and “Transit/HOV priority system” received a combined value of 4 to 5 minutes of travel time savings.
Perhaps most significant, the technology upgrade to automated ticketing was projected to provide a 7.5 minute improvement.
If you do not travel on a schedule, more frequent departures may also save waiting time for the next bus.
Presentations around the valley over the last few months show the proposed BRT system serving about 13 of the 46 bus stops between Rubey Park and West Glenwood. Another 11 stops are acceptable walking distance to BRT, leaving 22 stops to be served only by a local bus. There would be even fewer stops during peak periods, but the bulk of the service will fit this description.
Some BRT runs will originate in Glenwood, and others from Carbondale and Basalt, but the parallel routes of BRT alongside existing local service will create an approximate doubling of bus capacity on Highway 82 by 2013.
We do not know how long it might take for ridership to double, thereby getting the system back to the same level of efficiency being achieved today. RFTA has not estimated future ridership because this step is not required for the particular federal grant for which they have applied. It is not clear why ridership projections were not prepared for RFTA’s own internal use, or public review.
As obscure as the demand side of the ridership question might be, the supply side is not much better. If 42 passengers are carried on a particular bus run, the 42 seat bus that carries them will not be at 100 percent capacity unless every passenger travels the full length of the route. To know the average occupancy, you need to know the average trip length, and RFTA doesn’t collect that information. Since RFTA only knows ridership numbers and not average trip length, the number of seats that are currently available on the existing service is unknown to the RFTA board. This is a somewhat peculiar starting point from which to argue that additional buses are needed to accommodate growth in ridership.
To really understand what is happening on a bus route, especially one that runs a distance like that of the Highway 82 corridor, requires Boarding and Alighting (B&A) surveys. By recording where each passenger gets on and off the bus we learn all sorts of information, including both average and peak occupancy, and the popularity of individual stops. We are then also in a position to do efficiency comparisons with other systems, as “passenger miles” is the most valuable statistical data point for that purpose.
RFTA performed a rough B&A survey for a full day in March of this year, and a more precise B&A sample was gathered privately last summer. The roughness of RFTA’s effort was the result of combining the 46 stops on Highway 82 down to about a dozen locations, so that averaging the distances between bus stops was unavoidable. The precise survey done last summer was a sample, recording only four complete runs between Rubey Park and West Glenwood, but it accounted for B&A points for every passenger at every stop.
Both the rough full version and the precise sample version of a B&A survey show an average trip length of about 18 miles. Taking a couple more steps to convert everything into seat miles we get an annualized average occupancy of about 37 percent for the Highway 82 corridor. There is ample room for ridership growth on the existing system.
The results of the precise B&A survey also suggest why there should be a more thorough use of this tool by RFTA. As previously mentioned, it seems likely that people in Basalt, Carbondale, Blue Lake, etc. will make their way to a nearby BRT stop rather than take the valley local bus. Glenwood residents will only be able to board the BRT near Wal-Mart, which means that Ride Glenwood Springs, their in-town shuttle, will work as a feeder system. That leaves 15 stops at which bus riders will rely on the valley local.
Using the four runs monitored last summer as an example, total riders from the 15 local stops never exceeded six, or more than five at any one time. If RFTA is considering using full size buses for this service, the waste will be considerable. Based on this preliminary data, RFTA could test the theory of whether express bus service will result in big ridership gains by contracting with a private company* to provide van service for the minor bus stops.
An automated ticketing system can be designed to provide complete B&A information. (Have passengers key in their exact destination stop rather than a zone, and issue a ticket even when no fare is required.) The cost is only a few million dollars, as opposed to a couple hundred, making this the most cost effective of the time saving features. An additional benefit is that it makes the bus driver’s job much easier.
Not only is automated ticketing the best of the “BRT” features, it appears to be the data collection tool we need first - to determine whether the rest of the plan makes any sense.
*Disclosure – the author of this article works for a private transportation company.
Next: Part VIII
Things that make you go hmmmm.
October 15th, 2008
The term “Bus Rapid Transit” (BRT) is probably best understood as a menu of potential mass transit features rather than as a complete package or a particular system. Some of these features are straightforward efficiency improvements that can be applied to any bus system or route. A separate dedicated buslane is one major feature which, by itself, defines a bus route as BRT, but on the other hand many systems identified as BRT operate in HOV lanes or mixed traffic. For these and other reasons, analyzing another city’s BRT system to get some idea of the performance we can expect in our area is extremely tricky, of not impossible.
Websites devoted to BRT are understandably very positive, and one chosen at random, the “BRT Information Clearinghouse” is no exception. However, applying the information to local conditions is a real challenge. Statistics claiming that BRT routes can provide travel time improvements over existing bus service of 1 to 3 minutes per mile could mean that people traveling the length of the valley would arrive before they leave. Time-travel bus service, anyone?
For a less whimsical example, proponents of the upcoming valley-wide vote on BRT could quote the Clearinghouse claim from Houston that “up to 72” percent of new riders “were diverted from automobiles”. But then again, Boston reports “Prior Mode - Auto” as accounting for only 4 percent of new riders. Neither percentage means much of anything without first learning a long list of other factors, so lesson one is to beware of simplistic statistics.
One of the big tests of the current $650,000 BRT planning process will be whether the final proposal contains clear, meaningful, and relevant statistical information which will allow the public and elected officials to make informed choices. The past record is not encouraging. A report produced for RFTA in 2003, which was also concerned with a BRT system along the Highway 82 corridor, was extremely opaque. An exchange of several questions and answers with study authors was required to finally extract the information that an impossibly high increase in corridor bus ridership was being predicted.
One item from the BRT Clearinghouse which probably is relevant to this valley is the observation that travel time-savings are “greatest where the previous bus routes experienced major congestion.” However (and please provide a correction if you have any other example), Aspen is the only known instance where major congestion has purposely been preserved in order to create the rationale for a separate dedicated buslane. It is doubtful that voters will forever accept the status quo at the Entrance to Aspen, so estimates of travel time advantages with a BRT system should not be based on this artificial condition.
Another test of the credibility of the upcoming push for voter approval will be the extent to which voters are fully informed that this first round of tax increases is only the beginning. On this point, we have reason for optimism. Jacque Whitsitt, RFTA board member and leader of the campaign to approve BRT Phase One, was the source of the suggestion to call this step Phase One, in large part because both she and other board members felt that the full BRT long range plan will be more attractive to voters than just this first bite. So, the “in for a dime, in for a dollar” aspect of the current proposal promises to be front and center in their campaign, and that is a good thing.
If both the tax increase and a federal grant are secured, anywhere from $4 to $7 million each will be spent for bus stations in Basalt, El Jebel, and Brush Creek, as part of a total capital budget of $61.24 million. The really big ticket items that will be put off until a later phase are mostly related to locations where substantial parking will be added.
The $25 million parking facility planned for the Aspen airport area can’t be expected to fill up voluntarily, which brings us to the part of the plan for the entrance called “congestion pricing”. Congestion pricing is a slightly too sophisticated term which means there will be a toll charged to enter Aspen. In a reprise of the buslane situation, Aspen may be the only community which has ever purposely created congestion so that they can then charge a fee to “fix” it.
Perhaps the single biggest open question regarding the BRT proposal is whether ridership projections used to justify the expansion will be dependent on a toll that will never be charged. Voters will likely choose to eliminate congestion by fixing the highway, so the need for additional bus service should be evaluated according to reasonable expectations of the ridership that can be achieved with the other features of a BRT system, not separate dedicated buslanes.
Next: Part VII
Which BRT features make sense?
October 8th, 2008
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RFTA wants to embark on a major transit expansion plan over the seventeen year period from 2009 to 2025. Total capital costs of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan are in the range of $180 to $190 million, and annual operating expenses are projected to more than double, from a current $20 million or so to about $40 million.1
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Currently, total transit expenditures for RFTA and Snowmass Village averages about $31 million per year2
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We rank #3 in the nation for per capita transit operating expenditures, behind New York and San Francisco.3
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If the population of the RFTA service area was a single city, it would have ranked as the 479th largest in the United States in the 2000 US Census. In 2006, area transit service ranked as the 119th largest bus based system in the United States.3
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Mass transit is not cost effective, in large part because not enough of our trips fit the limited-purpose service that transit can provide. Consequently, private companies are unable to offer this service. This is why mass transit is a government program supported with tax dollars.4
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Between 1997 and 2007, RFTA operating expenses increased by 130%. Population in the RFTA service area grew by 38%. RFTA ridership grew by 21%.1
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RFTA is still using the same consultant that claimed a BRT system would increase valley ridership by 176% in five years!!!5
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The reduction in vehicle trips resulting from RFTA and Snowmass Village bus services is probably not less than 2 percent, but is most certainly not more than 4 percent. It therefore costs somewhere between $8 million and $15 million per year for every one percent reduction in vehicle trips.2
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The Federal Highway Administration estimates that 1.6 gallons of fuel is wasted for every vehicle hour of traffic delay. Current policy is to preserve congestion at the Entrance to Aspen to create a travel time advantage for buses. This wasted fuel offsets RFTA energy savings down to an amount comparable to one or two days of total regional fuel consumption.2
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It costs RFTA about $35.26 for every gallon of saved fuel, before accounting for the wasted fuel mentioned above.6
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RFTA is a Regional Transportation Authority (RTA). An RTA is a tax district which can plan for, propose, and fund projects related to “any highway, road, street, bus system, railroad, airport, gondola system, or mass transit system”. RFTA does not have to limit itself to mass transit projects.7
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Both RFTA and Pitkin County have rejected efforts to allow taxpayers to use the initiative petition process to propose highway based transportation projects.8
1Discussing Mass Transit Part V – What is RFTA Proposing?
2Part IV – Cost vs. Benefit
3Part II – How Much is Enough?
4Discussing Mass Transit Part I – Who is Served?
5Part III – Who’s Minding the Store?
6Comment on Part IV – Cost vs. Benefit
7Transportation Planning – Discussing Mass Transit (In Context)
8Transportation Funding
October 1st, 2008
The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan for the Highway 82 corridor has a large number of parts and pieces, but we need to look at the big picture before moving on to the fine detail.
RFTA wants to embark on a major transit expansion plan over the seventeen year period from 2009 to 2025. Total capital costs of the plan are in the range of $180 to $190 million, and annual operating expenses are projected to more than double, from a current $20 million or so to about $40 million.
During various presentations to the public and elected officials, the feedback was that the plan was too large to absorb all at once, both conceptually and financially, and that a phased approach would be more appropriate. The term “BRT Lite” was first proposed, but RFTA board members wanted to stress that the full BRT plan hadn’t changed, just the size of the first bite. So, “BRT Phase 1” is the moniker for the initial plan which the federal government and local voters will be asked to endorse and fund.
RFTA has not received much encouragement regarding federal financial participation, so they have also developed a plan for how to use the revenue if local voters approve a sales tax increase which is not augmented by any federal grants. The sales-tax-approval-with-no-federal-money scenario is really another layer of phasing; let’s call it “BRT Phase 1 Lite”.
Does RFTA need additional tax revenues to maintain current operations, regardless of whether federal funding sets off an expansion plan that will eventually result in a full BRT system? Consultants prepared graphs for public presentation, one of which illustrates a “Baseline” financial forecast indicating that RFTA is solvent through 2019, reaching a spending level that year of about $40 million.
However, a “Likely Trends” graph line, apparently intended to predict what RFTA will need to spend to keep pace with increasing ridership demand in the absence of a BRT system, shows a deficit beginning next year, growing to $6 million per year by 2025.
The latest Likely Trends scenario, a version developed in May, assumes a fleet expansion of 10 vehicles - scaled down from an estimate of 22 a month earlier! This sudden downward adjustment is difficult to understand, and the ability to do so doesn’t lend much credibility to ridership projections. Despite this, there has yet to be any official questioning of ridership assumptions, or the need for additional rolling stock.
Contributing to the sense that the definition of Likely Trends is highly flexible are those items on the latest budget that went up in price, even after the number of buses went down. The line item “ITS/Transit Priority”, a key technology feature of the BRT system, is on the Likely Trends budget for $12.3 million, as is a maintenance facility expansion at $10.25 million – only $0.5 million less than would be required to accommodate BRT Phase 1.
RFTA’s Likely Trends scenario has become indistinguishable from “BRT Phase 1 Lite”, a significant evolution from its original function as a number representing the response to projected ridership growth. The conclusion can only be that BRT is a fait accompli - even if the proposed sales tax increase is needed just to maintain the current system. The real “likely trend” is that RFTA will continue to grow beyond its revenue base, evidenced by the fact that if they do successfully secure approval of both higher sales taxes and the requested federal contribution of $21.3 million, they will need another round of tax hikes as early as 2013.
The likelihood that additional tax revenues may be needed to simply keep running in place, with no new service expansion, is illustrated by actual trends:
Between 1997 and 2007, RFTA operating expenses increased by 130%.
Population in the RFTA service area grew by 38%.
RFTA Ridership grew by 21%
The most peculiar wrinkle in the financial reporting has to do with the aforementioned $10 million maintenance facility expansion. In a presentation to Aspen and Pitkin County officials last April, RFTA indicated that current maintenance facilities are already operating beyond design capacity by about 19 vehicles.
How then did RFTA develop a Baseline financial forecast that doesn’t indicate a budget shortfall for maintenance expansion and the operating and maintenance expenses associated with the additional buses and vans? This is one of the serious perception problems that need to be addressed by RFTA, and another has to do with federal financing rules.
As explained by Dan Blankenship and Kristin Kenyon to the RFTA board: “FTA doesn’t want the VSS/SS program to be used by transit agencies for supplementing funding for existing services…” Don’t worry about the acronyms, the message is clear. If you want federal assistance you need to be creating a new service, not just shoring up an existing system.
The appearance that the perpetual expansion of service may be related to a persistent underreporting of financial reality is disturbing. Neither local taxpayers nor federal regulators should be subjected to a scheme to finesse current financial needs in the guise of an entirely new service proposal. If RFTA cannot maintain current service at current tax levels, they need to address that situation head on, and completely separate from any new service proposals. Consolidation should precede further expansion.
Assuming local taxpayers are willing to be taxed again to keep RFTA solvent at current service levels, it appears they will be unable to accomplish that goal without simultaneously launching a chain of events intended to increase transportation spending by additional hundreds of millions of dollars.
It may be more appropriate to offer voters a chance to choose between the two.
Next: Part VI
To BRT or not to BRT?
September 24th, 2008
Public investment in highway efficiency should always be the first priority for transportation funding, so long as there are still significant gains to be made. For example, there is no question that improved traffic flow at the Entrance to Aspen, and possibly other locations along the Highway 82 corridor, would save more fuel than an increase in bus service.
In addition, and unlike those transit expenditures which only benefit bus riders, highway upgrades benefit 100 percent of the traveling public, improving our experience regardless of whether we are using private vehicles or public transportation.
It is a huge missed opportunity that RFTA does not exercise its full potential to plan for, propose, and fund highway based transportation solutions. Projects as diverse as the Entrance to Aspen, Glenwood Springs bypass, or grade separated access to Basalt could move forward regardless of state funding delays, and would set us up for future reimbursements from the state that could then be applied to transit services.
It is doubly sad that the RFTA board could not bring itself to even discuss the possibility of creating a petition process as part of their charter so that private citizens could propose plans and funding options to present to the voters.
When advocates for a new Entrance to Aspen were sent packing by the RFTA board, petition organizers pursued the second best option and proposed a Pitkin County road fund property tax that prioritized spending to deal with the worst problem first. While the RFTA sales tax proposal would have required the creation of a petition process from scratch, citizens of Pitkin County already have the right of petition, as established by the state constitution.
For whatever that’s worth.
It is not credible that the county clerk and county attorney believe that the Pitkin County Charter supersedes the state constitution, but that’s what they claimed in rejecting the proposed road tax petitions. They took a purely political stand in order to protect the county’s own property tax proposal from having to face a competing ballot question offered by citizens.
Commitment to democracy among area officials extends only far enough to allow us to pick from their list of choices. The collateral damage of their collective mindset against direct democracy has been the suppression of common sense proposals that achieve their own stated objectives more effectively than the policies and projects they currently support.
*This space was originally intended for “Discussing Mass Transit Part V – What is RFTA Proposing?”, but RFTA is still working on whatever they are about to propose. We pause from that series long enough to offer this background information.
September 17th, 2008
Blogger Deborah Barnekow, director of education outreach for the Aspen Music Festival and School, is traveling to area schools with the Janus Trio this week. This is her first entry....
Continue Reading February 12th, 2008
Fifteen hundred pounds of marijuana is a whole lot of pot, even in Pitkin County, but 1,500 pounds is not nearly enough for Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officials to alert Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis that a major drug ring is doing business right under his nose—until the bust was in the books.
The Sheriff is, of course, enamored of those who break the law. Though now only intermittently sighted in his office in the basement of Pitkin County Courthouse—“He keeps his own hours,” explains his secretary—Braudis remains enamored of the criminal element.
Continue Reading December 17th, 2007
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