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Photo by Steve Johnson Empty seats were plentiful on the Rogue Valley Transportation District's route 1 in downtown Medford. District officials and mass transit experts say more routes and more frequent service would boost ridership, but that takes money the district hasn't been able to raise from voters. Trying to turn the corner After levy defeat, bus agency ponders future By DAVID PRESZLER Julie Brown knows the Rogue Valley Transportation District's busing system is inadequate. Bus service used to come by her home in the Griffin Creek area, before funding cutbacks in the early 1990s. If it still did, she says there's no question she'd ride the bus to work instead of carpooling. "If it was there, I would use it," says Brown, RVTD's alternative transportation specialist. "We're not able to cover the district." And she knows things are going to get worse. Last week, an eighth straight property tax levy to provide more funding for RVTD failed. The levy was to continue the current level of service, and RVTD officials say there will be systemwide cuts later this year. The latest failure comes as concern grows about traffic congestion in the Rogue Valley. And it raises questions about how -- or if -- mass transit can thrive here. Some may say there just isn't enough mass here yet for mass transit. National, regional and local transportation officials say population is a big factor, but frequent, reliable service can build the support -- and funding base -- to overcome size limitations. "It's not necessarily mass that makes it work," says RVTD planner Scott Chancey. "You see it in cities all across the nation that are smaller than us and larger than us and the same as us." Nationwide, transit use is growing fastest among cities of 50,000 or less, according to the American Public Transit Association in Washington, D.C. While percentage increases are bound to be higher in smaller areas, officials cite the growth as proof that transit can work on smaller scales. "The key is that you have to have the support," says Mark Ashby, a Southern Oregon-based planner with the Oregon Department of Transportation. "The transit system has to go the places people want to go to." But, RVTD general manager Sherrin Coleman and others say, here's the problem: It takes funding to provide the service that builds the ridership that builds support for the funding. "It's a Catch 22," Coleman says. "In order to become the kind of system that riders with a choice will use, you have to have the frequency and the lower fares." The public perception -- and often reality -- of RVTD's service is that the buses are largely used by those with no other options -- the elderly, the young, the poor and the disabled. Transit officials say stretching beyond that base is crucial to gaining the public's support -- and tax dollars. "You need to provide a service that's attractive," says Rose Sheridan of the American Public Transit Association. "You have to have a good level of service. It costs money to develop a good level of service but, once you have that, ridership will grow." RVTD's usage hit 1 million rides a year in the mid-1980s before steadily declining as service was cut back. Usage started to recover by the mid-1990s, but a failed levy in 1996 brought more cuts and even fewer riders. A two-year federal grant in 1997 -- the money the latest levy was to replace -- helped fuel a recovery that is now threatened. Last year, RVTD had more than 700,000 rides on its fixed and grant-funded routes. This year, ridership is climbing even higher and, before the levy failure, the hope was to reach 1 million rides next year. Commuters are the obvious target for growth and the most difficult for RVTD to serve effectively with limited resources. Take Brown, for example. If she wants to ride the bus, she has to walk or bike a mile -- in her work clothes -- to the nearest stop and then make three transfers. "It would take me approximately two hours to get to work and get home versus 20 minutes in the car," she says. That's a lot to ask, even of an RVTD employee and a passionate transit supporter. RVTD is trying to reach commuters. Part of Brown's job is to approach local employers, study their employees' commuting needs and see if a group pass program makes sense. Under the program, employers pay a per-employee rate -- which is tax deductible -- and employees get free rides on the bus. But RVTD struggles in what officials say are the two biggest areas that determine whether people will ditch their cars for the bus: frequency and range. "Frequency is a very big indication of whether someone will take transit or not," says Sheridan. "Does it go where I want it to go and when I want to go?" The ideal frequency for heavily used routes is one bus every 15 minutes. RVTD currently meets that on one route in both Medford and Ashland. Other routes run a bus every half hour or hour. But those rates may well have to drop with the funding cutbacks. The valley's layout and past land-use practices also make covering RVTD's service area difficult. "A key to the transit system is land use," Ashby says. "And we really don't have the land use to support it. All the development is really auto-oriented." Ashby is part of a group of local officials doing a Transit Oriented Design and Development study intended to promote smarter development. The idea, he says, is to identify and create high activity centers along the valley's main corridor -- roughly tracing Highway 99 from Ashland to Central Point. The activity centers -- shopping destinations, housing developments and the like -- can then be improved or designed to encourage people to use transit and to help the transit system be more efficient. RVTD's large service area -- 158.5 square miles that includes Medford, Ashland, Central Point, Jacksonville, Talent, Phoenix and White City -- is a significant challenge to resources, officials say. Several more often-used transit systems around the region serve much more compact areas. In Redding, Calif., for example, the bus service area is 100 square miles. About 106,000 people live in that area, compared with roughly 135,000 in RVTD's service area. But the Redding Area Bus Authority's annual ridership is expected to top 900,000 this year and likely 1 million in 2000. Though it serves a much bigger city, the Salem Mass Transit District also covers less ground than RVTD. Its service area is limited to the urban growth boundaries of Salem and Keizer, and it drew 4 million rides out of its population base of 190,000 last year. But despite the wide service area and development issues, Coleman is convinced RVTD can grow and succeed -- if it can get the financial support. "The funding is the only thing that keeps us back," she says. The latest failure brought a glimmer of new hope: For the first time, a majority of those who voted were in favor of the levy -- even if low voter participation kept it from passing. "That was encouraging," she says. "That shows me that people are beginning to understand the importance of public transit in a community. The system needs to become a grown-up system. "There has to be a getting over a hump at some time that gives us the needed revenue. It's not hopeless, it's just not an easy thing to do." Ironically, transit may find its most powerful ally in getting over that hump in a problem it seeks to solve: traffic. RVTD officials know the bottom line for many is that it's still just as fast -- if not faster -- to drive as it is to ride. But, officials say, as congestion -- and the pollution that comes with it -- grows, the need for transit will become clearer. "The support and knowledge has grown over the last few years," says Coleman. "It will continue to grow, as will the traffic." Property taxes still seem like best source At some point, you'd think the Rogue Valley Transportation District would learn. Eight property-tax-based levy requests for more funding, eight straight failures -- including an apathy-induced one last week in which a majority voted in favor of the levy only to see it fail for lack of voter participation. Despite that track record, RVTD general manager Sherrin Coleman says future funding requests are also likely to be based on property taxes. Coleman says RVTD has considered other methods but none seems any easier to get voters to support. A look at larger -- and more consistently funded -- transit systems around the state shows there is at least one other option: support based on payroll taxes. The state's two biggest systems, the Portland area's Tri-Met and the Eugene's Lane Transit District, were set up by the state to give their boards of directors the authority to levy taxes without going to the public. And both systems are supported by payroll taxes that employers pay. Though the idea may intrigue property owners, Coleman says she doesn't think it would fly here. "That brings out a lot of resistance," she says. An attempt to incorporate payroll taxes into RVTD's funding was defeated in 1991. And, because of the way RVTD was originally set up, Jackson County voters would have to approve any move to give it the same taxation powers that Tri-Met and Lane Transit have. Coleman says future attempts in that direction would surely to draw organized opposition from business interests while RVTD's property tax levy requests haven't. When looking for funding guidance from larger Oregon systems, RVTD finds its most similar big brother in the Salem Area Mass Transit District, which is also supported by property taxes. As in the Rogue Valley, Salem's bus service went through a string of election defeats. The tide turned in 1995 when a new property tax base was approved that officials pledged would provide sufficient funding for 10 years. "Salem went through the same rocky period and now they've gotten past that threshold," says Dinah Van Der Hyde, community transport program manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation. Van Der Hyde said one thing that swayed Salem voters was a massive voter education push that laid out exactly what services the community would get for its tax dollars. Another key factor, Clarence Pugh of the Salem Area Mass Transit District says, was wooing the business community -- something the district did by abandoning the payroll tax. The issue went to the voters at one point but didn't come close to passing. "We got murdered," Pugh said. "That just wasn't viable, so there's no point going down that road." Coleman seems to agree, so the property tax push is likely to continue. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA