CCMinutes - 02/23/04 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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community need that was filled by service to transit-dependent riders. He said the council needed to support LTD's fulfillment of community need and he was distressed by the need to cut services. He suggested that the entire model of LTD's operating revenue should be collectively rethought in the not-too-distant future if the community wanted good transit and in many cases a transit dollar would save many road dollars. Mr. Kelly asked if the development of BRT affected bus operations and bus operation funding and if it had, in part, caused the service cuts. Ms. Hocken said that funding for BRT came from a different source than operational funding and BRT had no impact on bus operation or proposed service cuts. Ms. Taylor expressed concern about the service cuts and asked if funds could be transferred from one source to another or if the Breeze could provide service to those areas where service cuts were proposed. Ms. Hocken explained that capital funds could not be used for operations and that the major cost associated with having a bus on the road was the cost of the operator, not the vehicle; therefore, using another vehicle such as the Breeze to serve an area would not reduce expenses. Ms. Taylor suggested that LTD could purchase taxis to serve areas affected by cuts in the south hills. Ms. Nathanson complimented LTD on the increase in service to special events in the community. She noted the service as becoming very popular with organizations and helped to reduce traffic and parking problems. She asked if LTD had considered working with groups of businesses such as those at Valley River Center or business parks to market the group pass program. She commented that there were no surprises in the ridership demographic statistics and asked what segment of the riding population LTD thought was most likely to be influenced by efforts to increase ridership. Referring to earlier comments about rethinking operating revenue sources, Ms. Nathanson asked if LTD had considered re-examining its mission or objectives in terms of cutting out some routes entirely in order to focus on increasing frequency, revenue, and ridership on other routes. Ms. Wylie said that LTD had been reviewing productivity during the past two years, which resulted in reducing routes that had inadequate ridership and focusing on routes with increased ridership. She said this was difficult because some of the routes that were cut represented services that some people desperately needed, but there weren't enough people to make the route productive. Ms. Hocken said one of the reasons LTD was using articulated buses was because the larger capacity buses could carry more passengers but still had the cost of only one operator, thus retaining the ability to serve high ridership routes and possibly making revenue available to serve the less popular routes. Mr. Meisner observed that making decisions about where ridership was now could be eliminating the future as building, housing, and tenancy patterns changed. Referring to earlier statements that BRT did not impact bus operations funding, he noted that the 20 percent match for federal construction funds for BRT did come from payroll tax revenues, which were also the source of funding for operations. Ms. Hocken agreed that was correct and said that the need to maintain sufficient funds for operations was a factor in delaying the Coburg Road Corridor. She added that LTD had a substantial amount of capital reserves when it went into the BRT project because it had set funds aside for many years during which payroll tax revenues were more than adequate to fund operations. Mr. Meisner said that the County and local jurisdictions were currently involved in discussions about how to equitably share Road Fund revenues, and he suggested that LTD should be involved in those discussions to determine how Road Funds could be shared to the benefit of all residents of Lane County. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 23, 2004 Page 7 Work Session