Minutes 01-27-2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

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7 Commissioner Price said "resilience" should include consideration of how County residents' needs for transportation to human services can be met if federal funding is insufficient. Some people think there will be an increase in funding for transit in rural areas but we just do not know. Travis Myren then described the County's efforts to provide resilience to the public transportation system. The Board then had a general discussion prompted by the agenda questions: (1) what significant forces of change other than those presented by staff do you anticipate in the context of public transportation, (2) what other likely consequences of those forces are you concerned about, and (3) how else to think about resilience in this context? Commissioner Price said students' ability to get to their educational institutions -- high school or Durham Tech, for example -- should be factored into the County's transportation resilience planning. Commissioner Jacobs, the Board's representative on the Burlington-Graham MPO, noted that their transportation entity is trying to partner with GoTriangle as much as possible. But it is not getting the support it needs from the Alamance County Board of Commissioners. This has been demonstrated in discussions about the quarter-cent sales tax for transportation. Meanwhile, they have a bus route that follows NC54 from Graham-Mebane to UNC that is so overused that people drive west in order to have a seat when they get on the bus. They don't have the money to add new buses, but people are sitting on the floor of the buses. He said he is open to direction from the Board to open an exploration with them about meeting our residents' needs for public transportation in that corridor in a way that would meet their needs too. Commissioner Rich reiterated that Orange County should pursue funding from Alamance County— however long that might take --while at the same time moving forward now on our own plans to provide the needed services between the two counties even if additional funding from Alamance is not forthcoming. She said she wants them to be committed to helping our residents get where they need to go without needing their cars. Craig Benedict said the 2012 Bus and Rail Investment Plan had an unfunded project called the White Cross Express. Maybe staff can revive that, he said. Piedmont Rapid Transit runs a route from Graham to UNC and then on to Duke University. It takes 45 minutes on that route to get from UNC to Duke. Maybe we can take some of those Duke passengers in Mebane in exchange for the capacity that might provide for picking up some passengers in White Cross who want to get to UNC. Commissioner Dorosin noted that 80% of people drive by themselves to access human services. Maybe they can offer some type of"Uber" program to get people out of their cars while also putting some needing funds into other residents' pockets. Since people are already driving to DSS or to a Senior Center from, say, Cedar Grove, why not recruit or engage them to pick up additional passengers, perhaps in return for some small compensation. Bonnie Hammersley said that in other counties a Mobility Coordinator position connects drivers and riders. Orange County's Mobility Coordinator is in the Department on Aging and so is not currently connecting drivers and riders for all of the County's services. Commissioner Dorosin added that churches have vans that sit in their parking lots except on Sundays and Wednesdays; perhaps they could be integrated into the transportation system. Janet Sparks, Child Support Services Director, cautioned against relying too heavily on the 80% statistic. These are the people they know about, but they are not the underserved. The survey was taken at one point in time and was a new process for them. They are talking about revisiting this survey with the Informatics Team to improve our methodology, for example by partnering with OCIM. Also, people might have their own car or scooter but those vehicles do not always work.