Governor Plays Critical Role in Public Transit

By Sharon Fisher, 5-15-09

Attendees of the Urban Land Institute’s Infrastructure 2009 Pivot Point event in Boise yesterday heard a story. An Intermountain West city determined it needed commuter rail – a train intended to carry passengers into the city for work—and needed it now, rather than waiting for the more typical 10 to 20 years.

Then the governor of the state decided to get involved. “Once he blessed it and got the support of the Legislature, funding was granted,” said Mark Warner, vice president and general manager of Motive Power Inc., a Boise-based manufacturer of train engines. The whole process took just two and a half years.

The support of an elected official is critical to the success of any public transit project, Warner said. And a governor is the ideal kind of elected official to champion such a public transit project, said Jeffrey Jackson, senior vice president and chief operating officer, American Heritage Railways, a Durango, Colo., special event railway system. 

The state was New Mexico, and the city was Albuquerque. Now, the train provides 2,300 passenger trips per day, which is expected to increase.

“I saw [Democratic Governor Bill] Richardson in action,” said Robert Taunton, chair of ULI Idaho, who said he lived in Santa Fe for seven years. “It’s no surprise that he got control of the Legislature.”

Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter’s office refused to comment.

While the conventional wisdom is that Idahoans aren’t interested in using public transit, Valley Regional Transit ridership is up 15 percent over last year, and is up 25 percent this quarter, even though the jump in gas prices that precipitated the increase has dropped, said Rob Hopper, a member of the Caldwell City Council and on the board of Valley Regional Transit. Once people try transit, they’re willing to continue using it, he said.

Nationwide, the use of commuter rail is up 4.7 percent, with 24 cities planning to add it, while light rail – which is more expensive—is up by 8.26 percent, with 37 cities planning to add it, said Jackson.

What makes Albuquerque’s achievement all the more remarkable is that it was accomplished with a planning team of just four people, said Warner. The team, however, believed their small size was a factor in their success, saying that a larger team would have taken twice as long and cost twice as much, he said.

The Albuquerque system, which is entirely state-funded, cost $400 million to set up, with operating costs of $20 million per year, Warner said.

Critics can point out that an operating cost of $20 million, divided among the current 2,300 daily trips, comes to $36 per day, assuming 240 business days per year. On the other hand, public transit can reduce the need for expanding highways, as well as reduce the amount of pollution in the air caused by driving – a problem the Treasure Valley is facing.

To get public transit, Idaho needs to do a couple of things, said Derick O’Neill, ULI Idaho program vice chair, who runs his own consulting business. First is to make it a priority. “We make roads a priority,” he said. “Portland decided not to.” Second, the community needs to get involved, such as businesses, the educational institutions located along the Caldwell-Boise corridor, and regular citizens, he said.

The same advice – particularly for business—was offered by Lane Beattie, head of the Salt Lake City chamber of commerce, two years ago, speaking of how Salt Lake City managed to get funding for its public transit system. Salt Lake City’s system, which took 14 years to implement, consists of both commuter rail and light rail, Warner said. “Commuter rail is part of a total regional transportation solution,” he quoted the city as saying. It cost $612 million to set up, 80 percent federal and 20 percent local, and has an operations cost of $19 million annually for 4,100 riders, Warner said.

Idaho has had a problem coming up with operations funding because it is one of only four states that do not have a dedicated source of funding for public transportation. Efforts to permit local option taxing authority, which would allow residents of an area to vote to tax themselves for projects such as public transit, have failed because of Republican legislative leadership attempts to provide it only through a Constitutional amendment, which would limit future legislatures’ abilities to change the law.

Warner advocated for a gas tax, noting that such a funding source would also encourage the use of public transit by making gas more expensive. “When gas became $4 a gallon, half of our parking lot was empty” as employees started carpooling, he said. North Carolina has the highest gas tax in the country and dedicates it to public transit, Jackson said.

O’Neill also suggested high-density development along the Caldwell-Boise corridor, noting that he had seen around 15 “A+” sites. “We need business to be a leader,” he said, adding that educational institutions could play a big role.

Boise State University, for example, offers free transit passes to all its students, and worked with Valley Regional Transit to provide shuttles between its Canyon County-based West Campus (now the home of the College of Western Idaho community college) to its main campus in downtown Boise.

Several of the speakers had ties to commuter rail, and not surprisingly they felt commuter rail was more appropriate for the Treasure Valley than other methods. A region needs to be more urbanized than the Boise area for a light rail system to be effective, Jackson said. They all stressed, however, that there needs to be a master plan with multiple solutions, such as feeder bus routes and park-and-ride stations.