Quick Take
This week, the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) will make a decision that will affect the future of public transportation in the county. Lookout political columnist Mike Rotkin, who is a member of the RTC and on the board of directors of Santa Cruz Metro, unpacks the importance for us and explains why support is essential.
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On Thursday morning, the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) will be facing a critical question necessary for its future – and the future of public transit in Santa Cruz County.
Santa Cruz Metro, the agency that runs our county’s bus service, has approved a visionary plan that would put Santa Cruz County at the forefront of the nation’s communities with respect to public transit. But it all depends on funding that has been designated for public transit not being diverted to road paving or other transportation issues,
While our current service is pretty good for a small community, it falls far short of the public transit service our community needs and deserves.
Based on the recent purchase of 57 hydrogen fuel cell, zero-emission buses — the largest purchase of such buses in the United States to date – Metro plans dramatic improvement in service levels with a significant reduction in our county’s negative impact on climate change. Some of the planned improvements include: 15-minute all-day frequency on major arterial routes, with 43% more service for residents, straighter routes with transit priority at intersections and free service for all riders, not just youth, which is currently the case.
More than 100,000 residents, including those currently underserved in the San Lorenzo Valley, will have access to this new bus service within a five-minute walk.
Metro will add 64 new jobs and $32 million to the local economy, and the new service should double ridership on Metro, adding more than three million additional rides annually to eventually provide seven million rides each year. This equates to a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reduction of 9,852,903 miles per year and a carbon dioxide emission reduction of 40,068 metric tons per year.
It is hard to overstate the positive impact of this improved public transit service on the possibilities for affordable housing in Santa Cruz County.
The proposed improved Metro transit service should provide the incentives in cost, efficiency and convenience to actually induce significant numbers of single-occupancy drivers to shift to public transit.
But most of this will not be possible if on Thursday the RTC diverts funding intended for Metro to other uses. The funding in the RTC budget discussion this coming Thursday is $27 million from the California Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program (TIRCP), $5 million from the consolidated funding program (a mix of state and regional funds) and $7 million from Zero Emission Transit Capital funding.
There is sufficient money in these three sources to fund what Metro needs to launch its proposed major expansion and improvement in service – along with supporting a host of other transportation projects in Santa Cruz County and its cities.
Until last week, there were proposals to divert these funds to county roads. It’s good the mood is shifting (I assume Michael Tree, CEO of Metro, was particularly persuasive) as that diversion would have undermined the planned transformation in our public transit service.
It now appears the RTC will support the funding necessary to jump-start Metro’s new plans. But residents might still want to make sure there are no last-minute proposals to move required funds from Metro to other county projects.
This is what happened last year and the year before at the RTC budget hearings. We want to make sure it doesn’t happen again this year.
Metro can afford to have $3.6 million out of the RTC budget diverted to fund the gap in funding necessary to complete the rail alignment study currently underway at the RTC. That study will allow the commission to have a realistic estimate of the capital and operating costs of passenger train service through Santa Cruz County.
The rail project will need additional funding if the alignment study demonstrates the feasibility of the project, but that funding won’t be necessary for at least another year and a half. It’s only fair that Metro and public works directors support that future funding if and when it becomes necessary.
But we do not need that funding out of this year’s RTC budget.
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD
Have opinions on the Regional Transportation Commission and Santa Cruz Metro funding? Email the RTC commissioners, and send Lookout a letter to the editor.
Funding that could have supported the traffic signal preemption project on Soquel Avenue that would give buses priority when there is congestion at intersections is, for example, not included in the RTC staff funding proposal. That project is a key to increasing the speed and convenience of public transit, but will have to find funding out of other sources during the coming year or two. A prime possibility is to get some of that support out of funds dedicated to road improvements in this year’s budget.
But that’s a fight for future meetings of the board of supervisors and the RTC.
We really are on the road (an unfortunate metaphor) to the kind of bus service that will put us at the forefront of the nation’s communities with respect to public transit, and we have to fight to protect that. Without the funds in question, we cannot consider free service or the frequency, speed, accessibility and coverage Metro is planning to provide to our community.
This Metro plan is within our reach, but we need the public to be prepared to support the current RTC staff recommendations to fund Metro’s dramatic plans for improved service.