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TRANSPORTATION THINK TANK NOTES FROM MARCH 16, 1999
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** NEXT MEETING: Wednesday April 7, 5 pm at CAFE BRASIL **
** 1410 Mission Street in Santa Cruz. All are invited. **
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The AGENDA for the April 7th meeting will include discussions by
Les White, General Manager of the SCMTD, and Mike Rotkin, Transit
District Board member and Santa Cruz City councilmember, regarding
their recent trip to Washington DC to obtain funding for the Transit
District, and regarding the five-year detailed plan for the future of
the Transit District. It should be an interesting meeting. We hope
also to begin planning a public forum on transportation.
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SPECIAL NOTE RE the UCSC PROPOSED PARKING STRUCTURE: THOSE INTERESTED
IN THIS TOPIC MAY WISH TO VIEW A NEWLY CREATED WEBSITE, where there
are links to relevant sites, along with strong opinions voiced:
Proposed Multi-Storey Parking Garage at UCSC
(Opinions expressed on this site are not necessarily those of the TTT,
since we are not an advocacy group. This note is for information only)
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NOTES FROM TRANSPORTATION THINK TANK'S FIFTH (Mar 17) MEETING...
Twenty-two people attended:
Peter Beckmann, Debbie Bulger, Kim Chin, Bill Comfort, Mary Comfort,
Renee Flower, Ron Goodman, Scott Graham, Barbara Graves,
Madeleine Hormann, Joe Jordan, Kevin Karplus, Peter Littman,
Jim Mackenzie, Dennis Norton, Emily Reilly, Marilyn Rigler, Peter Scott,
Janet Singer, Michael Singer, Richard Stover and Dave Walworth.
Following introductions, we discussed the notes from the meeting of
March 2, 1999. Janet Singer noted that the note-taker had omitted her
suggestion that a literature survey be conducted, perhaps by the SCCRTC,
of auto use reduction strategies that may have been tried in other
communities, including any information on how effective they were.
[Richard Stover had also suggested that a new survey be undertaken in
which motorists were asked "What would it take to get you out of your
car?"]
With these corrections we approved the notes (minutes) for our March 2,
1999 meeting.
HIGHWAY 17 EXPRESS BUS SERVICE DISCUSSION:
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Kim Chin, Manager of Planning and Marketing for the SCMTD, then
provided us with extensive information regarding the current status of
the Highway 17 Express Bus Service. He handed out both a copy of the
time schedule (printed on the back of the SCMTD's "Headways") and a
sheet documenting the usage for the 1998 year:
Quarter: Jan-Mar Apr-Jun Jul-Sep Oct-Dec
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Passenger trips: 43,574 41,098 43,569 46,422
Service miles: 95,939 96,941 98,132 98,412
Service hours: 2,962 3,009 3,046 3,053
Passengers/mile: 0.45 0.42 0.44 0.47
Passengers/hour: 14.71 13.66 14.30 15.20
"Passenger trips" are one-way trips.
Kim noted that the contract for the service (with DISCOVERY) ends in
June, and is planned to be renewed by the Transit District Board. He
also noted that the usage is relatively flat, and speculated that
downturns (such as in apr-Jun above) are the result of a congested
roadway leading to delays in bus scheduling.
Kevin Karplus noted that the passengers per mile is a useful
statistic---a good way to compare routes. He wondered who rides
this bus---is it mostly students? (yes---San Jose State students,
maybe 70 to 90 per cent)
Janet Singer asked how many exited at the SJ Caltrain station (maybe
50 per cent or fewer).
There were questions about monthly passes (yes: $60), numbers of seats
on each bus (42), quality of connections with Santa Clara County
Transit (there is good coordination with VTA). Dave Walworth
described the (successful) Altamont Express, with its feeders.
Barbara Graves noted that she uses the service, but that the Santa
Cruz County connections are not ideal in that she must drive from her
Capitola home to the 17 starting point at the Dominican Hospital,
while Santa Clara County connections are much better. She also noted
that better signage is needed.
Kim Chin pointed out that the service is purposefully not "promoted"
because it is already pretty well used and additional equipment, staff
and funding is not available right now. About 50 per cent of the
operation is paid from passenger fares. Kevin Karplus pointed out
that this is good compared with typical bus service, and that long
express services tend to do well in this regard. (Peter Beckmann
later noted also that bus service is not generally self-supporting,
and requires public subsidy.)
Kevin also noted that it is extremely inconvenient to make use of the
17 Express service without a car to get to a starting point, since the
bus does not visit downtown Santa Cruz. Questions regarding whether
it would be possible for the bus to stop at the Santa Cruz Transit
Center went unanswered. Is there a current conflict with the AMTRAK
service? (Madeleine Hormann thought there might be.) If so it would
be unfortunate and ironic, since now Peerless is out of the picture.
Debbie asked when decisions will be made regarding possible
improvements to the service.
Kim said that the Transit Board will likely be reviewing the contract
at its May meeting, and that a likely scenario was that the contract
would be extended. Whether there were likely to be improvements in
the service remained an unanswered question. Madeleine noted that the
death of the project manager had slowed down progress slightly, but
that new initiatives were now underway regarding the scope of work for
the 17 service.
Janet Singer asked what one could do to urge improvement.
Kim noted that there is not an advisory committee yet, but that we
should attend Transit District Board meetings and speak out.
There was some discussion about whether we should hear from a bus
operator at a future meeting. Ian McFadden would be a good contact.
The discussion ended somewhat inconclusively. We should hear an
update at the April 7 meeting of TTT, when additional information will
be available regarding funding and continued planning.
ADDITIONAL TOPICS:
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Barbara Graves spoke about plans for Capitola Village, with a master
plan advisory committee thinking about a multi-modal design involving
bic