BRING BACK THE BUSES? City considers public transportation

Robert Boyer

Jul. 20, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Burlington is the largest city in North Carolina without public transportation. More than 30 years ago, the city ended its municipal bus service.

The city is hardly alone in Alamance County. No other municipality has the service.

But with gas prices north of $4 a gallon, local governments are rethinking public transportation with an eye at expanding county service.

Figuring out the scale of such a system and how to pay for it are among the major hurdles, officials say.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION OF sorts is available to all county residents through the Alamance County Transportation Authority. Monday through Friday, more than 30 ACTA vans and buses provide nonemergency, round-trip transportation to and from residents' homes.

Rides are by appointment and range from $3 for those 60 and older to $7 one-way for the general public. Round-trip, same-day medical-related transportation costs $40 for incounty and $80 out-of-county trips.

The general public accounts for 25 to 30 percent of ACTA's ridership, according to an ACTA video on its Web site. These riders tend to use the service for work and shopping trips, among other things.

Disabled and/or elderly riders account for the bulk of the ridership, though.

Thanks to high gas prices and the increased commuting needs of a rapidly growing population, local and regional officials are giving serious consideration to providing more public transit.

"Obviously there's a need for public transportation," said Sandra Moulton, a member of the Gibsonville Board of Aldermen.

Moulton said for her, the need was driven home in February, when the Lowe's (NYSE:LOW) grocery store in Gibsonville closed. The shutdown generated requests from more than a few elderly residents for public transportation to grocery stores in Burlington, Moulton said. Gibsonville's Board of Aldermen considered using the town van to take the residents to grocery stores in west Burlington, but decided against that after town attorney Doug Hoy cited liability issues.

Moulton wants a countywide bus service; establishing service in Burlington and Graham, she said, is probably the best first-step toward that goal, given their status as the two largest local cities.

"The only way that this is going to work is if all the municipalities in the county agree to participate," she said.

A "quasi-government body" will be needed to determine fares and establish routes, Moulton added.

Graham City Councilman Vic Euliss also thinks local bus service is a viable option. "The need is here," he said.

A key to making that happen, Euliss said, is the support of the elected officials from the county and local municipalities who make up the Traffic Advisory Committee. Also key is public transport funding that is fair to all the municipalities.

Municipal and county governments could chip in funds on a prorated basis, with the amount of each government's outlay based on population size. Funding levels could be tweaked as ridership patterns emerge and change.

Such a flexible approach could help ensure that municipalities have some wiggle room and aren't locked into tough funding arrangements, Euliss said. "You don't need a noose around your neck, you need a yoke to pull and work together." BURLINGTON MAYOR Ronnie Wall agrees that any version of a local transit system will require broad-based support that includes Alamance Regional Medical Center and Alamance Community College. But Wall is taking more of a wait-and-see approach when it comes to whether he will support such an effort.

Public transportation has been "one of the hottest topics of discussion" at a series of recent town-hall-style meetings between city officials and east Burlington residents, Wall said. "I don't think there's any doubt in the meetings that they want public transportation." Wall is open to the possibility of public transportation, but said he needs to hear a lot more from transportation experts and residents who live in other parts of Burlington before he takes a position.

On Sept. 2, the Burlington City Council will hold an open discussion about public transportation with ACTA head Dennis Williams, and officials from the state Department of Transportation and the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation. PART provides express bus service throughout much of the Triad and beyond.

Wall said he then hopes to meet with elected officials from across the county "to have some dialogue" on the issue.

On Thursday, Wall, Moulton and Euliss were among the local officials who attended a public transportation forum sponsored by the Hayden-Harman Foundation, the Community Council and ACC.

In March, the Burlington philanthropic foundation and the council, a United Way affiliate in Burlington that has helped coordinate community and social services since 1939, formed a Public Transit Task Force to learn about transportation issues and "build public support for providing information about public transportation," said Patrick Harman, the foundation's executive director.

The task force, Harman said, plans to publish a report in February 2010 on the best way to implement a public transportation system in the county. He said the foundation will pledge $50,000 a year for three years toward a local public transportation system.

THE PIEDMONT AUTHORITY for Regional Transportation offers express bus service through a 10-county area and two daily trips to and from Greensboro to Boone via the Mountaineer Express.

"It's a good time for the transit industry," said Scott Rhine, PART's programs manger, during his presentation at Thursday's forum.

PART doesn't have any parkand-ride lots in Alamance County, but since 2004 has offered, in partnership with ACTA, medical-related trips to Durham and Chapel Hill from stops in Whitsett and Graham.

Thanks to high gas prices, Rhine said PART officials are "seeing a really large increase" in Alamance County riders using the twice-a-day service for work trips and hospital visits.

Ridership has also jumped in other areas like Surry County.

The high petrol prices are changing the habits for drivers who typically have been reluctant to park their cars in favor of taking the bus for 30- to 45-minute commutes. "They're saving money," Rhine said. "That's the big thing." Rhine is hoping to link PART routes with an Alamance County bus system, much as PART has done with city bus routes in Greensboro, High Point and Winston Salem.

Linking rural communities with larger urban counterparts is another challenge, Rhine added.

Dan Ingle, the vice-chairman of the county's board of commissioners and a member of the PART board along with Wall and Gibsonville Mayor Lenny Williams, agrees that public and political support needs to be carefully gauged before moving forward.

But Ingle is already on board for one step in that direction.

"We need a (PART) park-andride lot in Alamance County." Given their different functions, merging a local bus service with PART will be difficult, but necessary for those without other transportation options, Wall said. "PART's no good to a person who can't get to PART." Kurt Neufang, a senior planner with United Resource Services Corp., a global construction, engineering and technical service firm with an office in Morrisville, has just completed a regional transportation study for the state Department of Transportation that looks at tying together the 10 public transportation systems throughout the Piedmont Triad.

Among other things, the study, known as the Piedmont Triad Regional Seamless Mobility, calls initially for fixedroute bus routes in Burlington that could be expanded throughout the county, Neufang said.

Neufang thinks there is room for both ACTA and a local fixedroute bus system.

"ACTA already has an infrastructure that supports a public transit system," he said. "The hope would be that we could take that to another level." There is a need for public transport in areas like Elon University, Alamance Crossing, LabCorp's numerous local offices and downtown Burlington, Neufang said.

Neufang and other officials agree that the county needs a champion to propel the project from idea to drawing board to reality.

It will also take some hard choices when it comes to funding.

Ridership alone won't pay for a bus route. Some type of fee, or possibly a property tax increase, will be necessary to pay for a fixed-route system, Neufang and other transportation officials say.

That could prove to be the biggest hurdle.

Mebane Mayor Glendel Stephenson is open to the possibility of some type of local public transportation, but he opposes a tax increase to pay for it. "If a public transportation system can be operated on a (rider) fee basis, I'm all for it." Fairness to taxpayers is a big part of the issue, Stephenson said. "Why in the world should the general public subsidize people who don't have transportation?" Neufang said public transit would help the county as a whole by reducing transportation costs for low-income workers. That would help taxpayers save money by keeping such workers on the job and off public assistance.

Taking a cue from the funding suggestions at the forum, Moulton thinks local governments can find other ways to pay, such as adding $1 to the vehicle registration fee, or a rental-car tax.

Federal dollars are also available, Neufang said at the forum.

Funding questions aside, there is at least some interest in Mebane for public transportation.

Stephenson said he recently received inquiries about public transportation from a developer who wants to build homes near Mill Creek and an Orange County official who is interested in a bus route from Mebane to the Research Triangle Park.

Local and regional officials agree that large-scale public transportation is at least three or four years away.

Despite the hurdles, Moulton is convinced a local bus service is an idea whose time has come. The question, she said, is not if, but when.

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