I. Meeting commenced at 1:45p Monday 4/10/00 at EGSD district Office. Present were A.T.Stoddard, President of LSC Transportation Consultants Inc.; Kent Meyer, YMCA-Snow Mountain Ranch,; Janet Aley, Director of Transportation for East Grand Schools; Steve Saffle, Ryder Transportation; Eunice Marte, Grand County Council on Aging; Sue Ann Fitch, Chair, Transportation Advisory Committee.

Eunice Marte is attending on behalf of Grand County Council on Aging. Her contact information is: P.O.Box 73, Granby, CO 80446 970.887.3572. Please send her a copy of the minutes of this meeting AND add her to the mailing list.

II. Sue Ann Fitch moved, Steve Saffle seconded, approval of the previous meeting minutes of February 14, 2000. Approved unanimously.

III. Tech Memo #1 Comments. Comments are due on Tech Memo #1 by Friday April 21, 2000. AT indicated simply sending him copies of written on pages would work & or a telephone call. For instance, Steve mentioned that the night shuttle isn't paid for by WP/FV Chamber of Commerce. AT reminded everyone that this is a first really rough draft and getting feedback is very important. Still missing data from variety of sources.

Initial comments included Sue Ann's request that the Y be fully described in terms of available beds, activity centers, distances between particular facilities AND that the cross-x skiing available in the county be as fully explored as the alpine/downhill. Steve Saffle's comment: page III-7, residents of Walden need access to jobs in Steamboat Springs AND GRAND COUNTY/WINTER PARK. Page IV-7, Ryder doesn't provide the Silver Creek Shuttle. Same page: take out this language "using older, fully depreciated equipment saves the private company money, but may not necessarily provide. . . ." Steve has offered WPRA new equipment, they didn't want to incur the added expense. Page IV-9, Night shuttle is paid for by Towns of Winter Park and Fraser, not by the Chamber of Commerce. Denise Hiscocks, former director of Council on Aging, came in from her new job at EGSD to relay what additional information she could make available. She had the surveys of senior riders with her and the balance of the information has already been sent.

AT mentioned that a table will be added enabling a quick comparison existing provider of expenses, and ridership, for existing transit providers.

Janet Aley mentioned that the demographic information on students will be gathered from phone numbers.

IV. COORDINATION POSSIBILITY ISSUES:

Cooperation is the "the lowest level,," basically where you agree to cooperate on some things, e.g. bulk buy on tires & but transportation is provided separately (other example, perhaps cooperative buy of fuel, assistance in engine replacement, etc.).

Coordination: "instead of you running the bus to a necessary place, I'll pay you to run it more conveniently."

Consolidation : Highest level, joining services into single entity.

BARRIERS TO COORDINATION EFFORTS/Discussion: Presentation by AT: barriers to coordination include:

Funding & 20% match often required & grants often come with strings, e.g. Title III (Older Americans Act), used to provide senior transportation (strings are: no fare can be charged, can only be used by seniors) & Anyone else riding would have to pay the full cost of transit service. Medicaid is another source of funding, comes with many restrictions as well (e.g. Medicaid is supposed to be "funding of last resort" & other restrictions include being a "designated provider," much paperwork necessary for reimbursement, etc.

Federal Transit Administration funds: Section 5309 is major capital funding & buy busses, pay for maintenance/transfer facility & congressional program & you don't apply to FTA and get your money, it is passed through Colorado DOT. Projects are "earmarked" for funding by Congress and it is VERY competitive process. Colorado has, however, been very successful in recent applications by going in as a coalition. Section 5309 also requires a match. FTA money can only be used for FTA funded transit & thus the segregated accounting requirements can be very burdensome (joint facility is more likely to be audited) & [Janet mentioned that EGSD is already undergoing this regular auditing for other programs]. It might make sense to build joint maintenance facility with other money and then get FTA funds reimbursing for maintenance charges.

Section 5310 is also for capital expenditures, also requires the 20% match, is for purchase of vehicles for use to provide transit to elderly and handicapped. Transportation MUST be used primarily to provide services for those two groups. Steve asked if the handicapped services could be split out, a separate lease from any non-profit or governmental funds? Yes, if it was a non-profit. Both NSCD (501(c)(3) and WPRA are non-profit entities.

Section 5311 & rural capital and/or operating expenses & MUST be open to general public. So, for instance, (doesn't have to be fixed route), WPRA could apply for funds (match is 50% on operating, 20% on capital) for the areas in which the public may ride the WPRA busses. Service must be year-round, can also be different routes during different seasons to meet differing demand. For instance, SST runs MANY busses in the winter and expands geographic coverage but reduces # of busses in service in summer. Realistically, it's not a lot of money. Roaring Fork (Aspen) gets maybe $40,000-$50,000 per year, and they're the second largest in the State. 5311 isn't really designed for tourist areas & more easily applicable to rural areas.

Colorado Pupil Transportation reimbursement & also many limitations. School districts CAN pay for students to ride on public transportation (both Denver and the large district in Colorado springs purchase public transit passes for students).

Another barrier is that neither federally nor state-wide is there any mandate in favor of coordination of transit services between transportation providers. However, federal programs for FTA funding encourage coordination. The more you coordinate, the better your chance of prevailing on those grant applications. Do NEW service institution programs get preferential treatment in grant funding? No.


Another barrier & differences between school and public bus vehicle standards.

Another Barrier/Resistance to Mixing passenger types. Parents often resistant to mixing public passengers and students; elderly don't want to ride with obnoxious teenagers.

Yet Another Barrier: Lack of information, lack of correct information (e.g. school districts didn't realize that they could seek reimbursement for funds spent to transport students on public transportation)

Another barrier: Management headaches & e.g. joint maintenance facility, accounting issues. Steve Saffle indicating that this isn't as difficult as it used to be due to the available software programs designed for this purpose.

Opportunities to coordinate include:

Limited resources pooled can provide greater service levels.

Identified unmet needs can more likely be met with coordination between providers.

Local support for Coordination & REQUIRES A CHAMPION. A single person (or very small group) who will not take "no" for an answer when they hit those barriers listed above. Every place AT knows of that coordination works has had a single person/small group that pushed and pushed until it happened.

Cooperating in such areas as purchasing, routes

1. Need route cooperation between Ryder & SC getting visitors AND employees from Grand Lake, through Granby stopping at the Y to pick up visitors to WPRA and going on AND BOTH (1) mid-day and (2) late afternoon returns to Y AND all the way to Grand Lake. ~ Getting the public back at 7 and 10p isn't very useful.

2. Summers, FVMRD brings a bus 4x a week to YMCA for swim lessons (ditto GLMRD). Both would use transit service if available.

3. Need to coordinate routes and times between SC & WPRA BEFORE the schedules/routes are printed.

4. Need to be able to get summer and winter visitors (can be as many as 2300 folks) from the Y (who arrive on charter busses and get left w/o transportation)

5. Winter, Y has had as many as 14 busses leaving from the Y to go to WPRA, so no deadheading from a dispatch facility located at Y of those vehicles.

6. Kent needs to know BEFORE MAY how much acreage is needed for the facility needed, what water requirements. 14 miles from Y to WPRA.

7. IF the Y is willing to lease sufficient property for a maintenance facility, the Y would like to see their visitors/employees have adequate, free or reasonably priced service. Y also willing to consider a small transfer facility at the junction of CR 53 and US 40, but NOT a park ën ride.

8. Other outlying needs for park n' ride facilities are at least (a) Junction of 34 & 40, (b) top of red dirt hill (entrance to WP Highlands).

9. What about an Empire park n' ride to get the day skiers off the pass out of the close-in parking lots?

10. Steve mentioned that he probably can't help school district with tires, because district doesn't have to pay taxes and Ryder does.

11. What about keeping the existing Ryder facility as a dispatch, operating location (but no vehicle maintenance) & would save $ on employee transportation who mostly come from GL and Granby.

12. Would WPRA be interested in coming in on a maintenance facility for their company owned vehicles? Steve thinks perhaps, they don't have a bus mechanic right now.

13. What about students on public transportation? Janet discussed problems with students who must cross a 65 mph highway and public transit busses have no way to stop traffic. Janet also wouldn't support it because students can live anywhere in the county and go to any school and students do it!! So even if you limit by age group, it wouldn't save EGSD any $$

14. What about coordination of repair service? Would need to prioritize vehicles (e.g. repair of regular school busses takes priority over visitors?)

15. What about the County, interested in shared maintenance of smaller vehicles? What about Road & Bridge?

16. Charge participants in capital outlays less for maintenance than for those that didn't participate.

17. EGSD might be interested in getting rid of maintenance part of bus work. Service options.

18. Kent "needs mechanic for antique bulldozers."

19. Are other mountain area busses, public or student, stored inside? Roaring Fork is working on it, No in Summit, no in North Park, no in West Grand, Eagle County is building one.

20. GCCOA needs a bus. Jack Van Horn (Home James) has vehicles for sale & but GCCOA doesn't have any available funds right now. What can be done.

V. Next meeting not scheduled at this time. Meeting adjourned at 3:20p