COUNCIL SUPPLEMENTAL STAFF REPORT

Transcription

1 COUNCIL SUPPLEMENTAL STAFF REPORT CITY COUNCIL of SALT LAKE CITY TO: City Council Members FROM: Russell Weeks Senior Policy Analyst Item Schedule: Briefing: August 8, 2017 Set Date: August 8, 2017 Public Hearing: September 19 and October 3, 2017 Potential Action: October 17, 2017 DATE: September 28, 2017 at 1:41 PM RE: TRANSIT MASTER PLAN FOLLOW-UP ISSUE AT-A-GLANCE This report accompanies a new transmittal from Mayor Jacqueline Biskupski s Administration pertaining to the proposed Transit Master Plan. The new transmittal is a follow-up to the original transmittal presented to and discussed by the City Council at its August 8, 2017, work session. The Administration prepared the transmittal in response to City Council questions raised on August 8. The Council held a public hearing September 19 on the proposed master and is holding a second hearing October 3 to give the public another opportunity to comment on the plan. The format of this report will be to summarize public comments the City Council has received to date and summarize the Administration s responses to the questions raised at the August 8 briefing. All responses are from the Administration transmittal included in the City Council packet or responses by Transportation Division staff. Council staff anticipates the City Council will hold another briefing on October 17 before it formally considers a motion to adopt the proposed plan by resolution. Motions pertaining to closing or continuing the public hearing are attached to this report. In addition, written comments from comments received or heard at the public hearing are attached. The original staff report and Administration transmittal also are attached for those who may wish to read them. PUBLIC COMMENT SUMMARIES A total of 13 people have responded to the City Council s request for public comment since the Council started seeking comment on Open City Hall on the Internet site August 25. According to the site 73 people CITY COUNCIL OF SALT LAKE CITY 451 SOUTH STATE STREET, ROOM 304 P.O. BOX , SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH SLCCOUNCIL.COM TEL FAX

2 visited the site to date, and six people have made comments. The site will stay open at least until October 3. Another six people spoke at the September 19 public hearing, and two people sent comments by . One person who commented by also commented on the Open City Hall site. In general, the six people who spoke at the public hearing spoke in support of the proposed Transit Master Plan. Four speakers spoke in favor of the Frequent Transit Network, one of the main features of the plan. Two speakers said the Frequent Transit Network should be the City s main priority because it emphasizes using buses instead of light-rail or streetcars. One speaker spoke in favor of building additional transit hubs in the City. One speaker spoke against it. Council Member Lisa Adams requested that Council Members consider including full-time bus service to Hogle Zoo and This is the Place State Park. (UTA operates a seasonal summer service currently.) Among the six people who left comments on Open City Hall, all six appear to favor the proposed master plan. Issues the six commenters raised included: Locating a transit hub at the University of Utah should consider how transit users can get from one end of the university campus to the other end without having to travel along the campus periphery; the Frequent Transit Network grid should be finished first, and well before the plan s 2040 deadline, before any other transit improvements are built; fares should be $1 instead of $2.50; residents should have more oversight of the proposed plan s implementation. The person advocating for implementing the full Frequent Transit Network grid before 2040 also submitted an comment. The second person who submitted an comment, supported the proposed plan s concept, but took issue with the plan s idea ultimately to build a streetcar line or bus-rapid transit line on 200 South, particularly east of 900 East Street which has grassy medians. Bus rapid transit generally requires a dedicated traffic lane. The nature of 200 South Street also becomes more residential east of 700 East Street. The writer suggested that the route that now uses 200 South Street could switch destinations with the bus route that uses 100 South Street to provide more effective service. COUNCIL MEMBER QUESTIONS AND ADMINISTRATION RESPONSES Using Transportation Network Companies such as Uber and Lyft to augment mass transit in some areas: How does using a Transportation Network Company work where people generally pay with cash instead of debit or credit cards? The City could consider contracting with more than one company, including companies that take cash. More traditional companies also might make service available to those who use land-line or basic cell telephones. Another option could include taking cash as a condition of a Transportation Network Company s contract. Is there a way to compare the projected cost of operating a frequent bus line in neighborhoods such as those above Foothill Drive with the projected cost of contracting with a Transportation Network Company to take people to a nearby transit stop? It is more expensive to run fixed route bus service with low ridership than it is to provide on-demand trips to transit, and our cost estimate for a pilot for all the neighborhoods identified for alternative service in the plan is between one-third and two-thirds of a typical bus route. Beyond cost, the modeling and evaluation that was done as a part of this process tell us there are areas of the city that are not best served by fixed route transit regardless of their demographics. In Salt Lake City, those areas were identified as candidates for alternative service models (either residential or employment based ), and they include: Upper Avenues, some residential neighborhoods between I-15 and Redwood/I-215, the East Bench, most of the area west of Redwood/I-215, and Research Park. The primary challenges for frequent, fixed-route service are low-density single uses, a breakdown in the grid street network, and certain physical barriers, such as active freight rails. Fixed route transit does include bus routes, Page 2

3 and refers to those that run along a prescribed route on a fixed schedule (as opposed, for example, to flex routes, which deviate based upon pre-scheduled needs). Where has using Transportation Network Companies to augment a transportation network worked? Transportation staff is in ongoing discussion with cities that have planned or piloted this type of program. They vary substantially from place to place In most places it is too soon to have reports on their level of success. The following link includes a number of case studies: =59cc06d0. What is the potential for driverless, autonomous vehicles to provide a service similar to human-driven TNC vehicles? The potential for driverless, autonomous vehicles to provide TNC service is equivalent to their potential for providing transit service in general. What is the potential to provide or require electric vehicles to provide TNC service? Park City is currently preparing to launch a similar pilot that includes this requirement. Based on Salt Lake City s market size and availability of electric vehicles, it may be more pragmatic to incentivize service provision via electric vehicle than to require it. It should be noted that Park City Mayor Jack Thomas on September 19 removed consideration of a contract for the pilot program from the Park City Council meeting agenda. (Please see attached news article.) Streetcar Framework: The City Council wants to see a framework for a streetcar system to use in future transit grant applications and future planning. The (Transit Master Plan) corridor plan is mode-neutral because either bus- or rail-based technologies can provide high-quality, frequent transit service. Corridor studies, such as those conducted for the S-Line extension and the Downtown Streetcar project, are used to evaluate what level of investment will yield the community s desired outcomes. The plan indicates which corridors to study first, as well as how these corridors fit within the overall transit network. To understand what a streetcar network in Salt Lake City might look like, the Capital Investment map (Please see attached map) is the best representation, with the high-level investment corridors as the best candidates, and the moderate-level investment corridors as longer-term candidates, particularly when those corridors connect to the existing rail network. The Wasatch Choice 2050 website shows the potential benefits of each regional scenario by twelve performance measures, and it has interactive maps that identify the projects included in each. An S-Line extension to Holladay is included in Scenario 2. The adopted S-Line extension alignment to 1700 South and further north is included in Scenario 3, but is not currently included in the Transit Master Plan s Capital Investment map, having been removed during the executive review process. 200 South Street bus route: What are the local ridership numbers for the bus line? What stops between Central Station and the University of Utah are most used by local residents? While (the Transportation Division) is unable to determine which riders are local residents as opposed to visitors and employees, the stops with the highest average daily boardings suggest that many trips are local: 15 West, 255 W, 120 E, 498 East, and 902 East in that order. Most of these locations connect with recommended Frequent Transit Network corridors. Average weekday boardings August December 2016 at top 200 south stops (total activity, which includes boardings and exits, is shown parenthetically): o 15 W ( total activity) o 255 W ( total activity) o 120 E ( total activity) o 498 E ( total activity) o 902 E ( total activity) Page 3

4 200 South has a very important role in the local transit network. It has the highest boardings per mile in UTA s bus network, and is entirely within Salt Lake City limits. Frequent service on this corridor enables service to shift from the hub-and-spoke model to a grid-based network. For example, currently the 205 turns at 200 South to connect to the regional system at Salt Lake Central, whereas fast, easy transfers at 200 South could allow for the 205 to extend further north to serve the Avenues. 200 South runs through the densest part of the City, with the highest mix of uses, and the highest concentration of high-transit-propensity households. UTA already provides frequent service on this corridor from about 5:30 am to 8:30 pm on weekdays, with far more limited service on weekends. What this means is that if the City decides to buy up additional service, it would serve evening and weekend trips that are outside standard commute times. The map below shows a comparison of segments modeled for the Downtown Streetcar analysis. One can see how much ridership is increased by expanding from Downtown eastward into what are largely residential neighborhoods, and how much doing so fosters ridership at the connections to TRAX and FrontRunner that would otherwise seem to primarily serve a regional commuter market. Industrial Area Transit: Are there any other options besides Transportation Management Association funded shuttles for the area south of I-80 and west of Redwood Road in the next 20 years? How is the City planning for growth in the industrial area using transit? There are two UTA shuttle routes that currently serve this part of the City, the 509 and the 513. The former runs every half hour during the morning and evening peaks and every hour at midday, with a span of about 5:30 am to 7 pm. The latter runs twice in the morning and twice in the late afternoon. Additionally, UTA and UDOT are developing plans for frequent express transit service operating along 5600 West from Old Bingham Highway to the International Center, Airport, and Downtown. Page 4

5 Service in the west side industrial area currently has low productivity. Most of the bus stops on these routes see between zero and five average daily boardings. The results from the Design Your Transit System online tool indicate that this part of the city is the lowest public priority by a large margin, wherein multiple areas could be selected, yet industrial areas in the City was selected by 9% fewer people than the next lowest-ranked area. This could be due to the fact that many of the people employed in these areas live outside of Salt Lake City. For additional transit service to be successful, the Transportation Master Plan and Northwest Quadrant Master Plan would need to be updated to address the following challenges: lack of a sufficiently finegrained, connected and continuous roadway network, very poor walkability (few sidewalks, large parking lots to cross to enter buildings, insufficient shade, lighting, etc.), multiple freight rail corridors, scattered single-use low-density land uses. Budget/Personnel: Is the City s and UTA s current relationship structure sufficient to meet both parties needs for transit planning and implementation. How would the City and UTA develop a full set of legs to implement a transit system that involves more than an incremental, step-by-step approach? UTA has a highly capable and collaborative staff with whom we work well. Once the Transportation Director position is filled and higher level communications are strengthened (inter- and intra-agency), we should be well-equipped to implement the plan provided adequate resources. Stronger internal communication, vertically and horizontally, within both SLC and UTA would enhance what is already an effective working relationship. A combination of new regional and local funding sources would be needed, particularly for both tiers of the service component. For example, a sales tax increase in Salt Lake County paired with local funding for corridors could largely serve local rather than regional trips. A variety of potential funding sources are explored in Chapter 7 of the plan, and this chapter also discusses steps and strategies for working together to implement the plan. If City Council pursues more aggressive implementation of the full twenty-year plan, additional staff may be needed to support corridor-level studies, communications, signalization changes, and construction. Page 5