Minutes 02-21-2013 - Laserfiche WebLink

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the total cost is $43.09 per hour. He said the trips/passengers per hour is 6.5 and it started out as 3.8/hour. He noted that this is a very high number for a public route. The high volume pick up areas are: 2 - the police station annex, 3 - Hester Whitted, 4 -Whitted Forest off highway 70, 10 - Coachwood, and 11- Gateway. He said the high volume drop-off areas are: The Library, because of its central location; Department of Social Services; Durham Tech, because of its connection to the 420; Food Lion; the courthouse; and Walmart. Al Terry said it takes about 2250 hours to run this route. He noted that once June 30, 2014 comes and the current funds disappear and the agreement with the Town of Hillsborough has disappeared, the funding has to come from somewhere. He said there will be a $96,000 per year operational cost. He said the remainder of this year and all of the 2014 fiscal year, the funding will remain 80% CMAQ funds and 20% Town of Hillsborough. He said this is a highly successful route with about 15,000 riders per year, which hopefully takes a lot of vehicles off the road. It takes about an hour to make the entire route and there are some proposed changes under consideration, however, the plan at this point is to maintain the current schedule. He said the circulator route it is the most successful route that OPT operates. Craig Benedict said there is partial funding in the Orange County Bus and Rail Development plan after the CMAQ funds run out. He said, this includes the 2,250 hour and local matching funds would be necessary at about 25%. He said they are still researching with Triangle Transit, what the assumption was for local funding and for federal and state funding. He said that if federal and state funding does not come forth for the additional 75% then local match will go up. There is a funding source to take this into the future with the half cent sales tax and the question is when it comes online, and what local match is being followed. Al Terry said that the half cent sales tax could support the route in some fashion, but the service hours, would use half cent sales dollars and would reduce other services that Orange Public Transportation could provide, because there are a limited number of service hours within the plan. Al Terry also referred back to the discussion of the east/west corridor route and said that there will be test runs being done to see how cost effective the route could be run and that Orange Public transport could start that route if Triangle Transit chooses to give those service hours. Commissioner Gordon questioned how it came about that Triangle Transit decided to run the route from Hillsborough to Durham instead of Mebane to Durham. Craig Benedict said the master plan states Mebane to Durham, but there was some consideration of starting a partial route and expanding over time because of the way the money has come. He said there is a need to look at models of how best to allocate funds as they come in. Al Terry said that when it is a commuter service, consideration has to be taken of who provides emergency transportation back to the vehicle and this is the reason for two mid-day runs. Commissioner Gordon said it is important to follow up on these issues because it is a deviation from the plan. She said there should be a request for ridership numbers from Mebane to Durham and from Hillsborough to Durham to see if the numbers work out. She noted that Triangle Transit reevaluates routes every spring to see if they need to be redone. Al Terry said even though they have a semi-hub now in North Hillsborough it needs to be a temporary hub, not a permanent HUB, because it is not ADA compliant. He said they have looked at several other areas and need to continue to look for other options that would accommodate a park and ride. 3. Implementation of Downtown Hillsborough Access Study Improvements (Crosswalks, Parking, Sidewalk Work)