attractiveness of transportation choices like carpooling and transit use that place a lower dem and on the transportation sy stem com pared to driving along. Within the Medford UGB, the leader in developi ng and implem enting TDM strategies is the Rogue Valley Transportation District (RVTD). RVTD curren tly prom otes a full range of several TDM strategies including: education program s, trip reduction incentives, the “bikes on buses” program , carpools, vanpools, telework, park-and-ride service, em ployer outreach and other strategies. In addition, RVTD is actively engaged in developing a Transportation Managem ent Associati on (or TMA) within the Medford area to assist large em ployers with im plem entation of various dem and m anagem ent strategies. TDM strategies currently being im plem ented and/or deve loped in the Medford UGB are described below. Transportation Management Association The Rogue Valley TMA program is in its early form ative stages, and RVTD is currently recruiting TMA membership. As of late 2002, RVTD is an official member of the TMA, and Jackson County is an active participants but has not y et officially joined. The City of Medford becam e a m ember in 2003. RVTD has about 70 em ployees, Jackson County has 1,000, and Medford has 400 employees. Monthly meetings of the TMA are held, which are attended by these three ag encies. The m ost recent m eeting was the first in which the TMA extended its outreach to private em ployers. Four private em ployers attended this m eeting including: Providence Hospital, Rogue Com munity College, Bear Creek Corporation, and the federal Bureau of Land Managem ent. The TMA is looking fo r longer term stable funding and expects to subm it an application for CMAQ funding at the end of 2002. Bikes on Buses Program All RVTD buses are fitted with bicycle racks that accom modate two bikes. Under certain circum stances, bikes can be brought into the bus when the racks are fu ll. The racks allow bicy clists to ride to a transit stop, load their bikes, and take transit to a sp ecific destination. The bikes on buses program carries a significant num ber of bicy cles each y ear with ridership growing from 7,108 in fiscal year 1997-98 to 22,151 in 2001-2002, an increase of over 200%. Riders hip experience with the bikes on buses program for each of the past several y ears is sum marized in Table 3-15. Early indications are that over 30,000 bike trips will be taken on RVTD buses in the 2003 fiscal y ear that ends June 30th. At the end of 2002, RVTD subm itted an application for CMAQ funding to re place all 2-bike bus racks with 3-bike bus racks to accom modate the increased dem and for this service. Analy sis of detailed ridership statistics for this pr ogram indicates that Route 30 (service between Medford and Jacksonville) has the highest share of bike riders on the bus (nearly half of all such trips), followed by Route 60 (service to White City ). According to RVTD staff, it appears that riders with bikes are m uch like the average bus rider in term s of where they go and how often they travel, except that they either need to m ake part of their trip before or after RVTD service hours or they have a trip origin or destination further than a com fortable walking distance from the cl osest bus stop. Recreational cy clists tend not to use the service except for em ergencies. RVTD Valley Rideshare The rideshare program assists local em ployers, em ployees and residents in creating or joining carpools or vanpools to make the journey to work. In late 2002, RVTD started using the City of Portland’s carpoolm atchnw.org online carpool m atching web site. Th is site currently covers the entire state of Oregon as well as part of Washington State near Portland. RVTD expects to add a few Northern California counties to the sy stem in 2003. RVTD Telecommuting RVTD serves as a local inform ation resource to prom ote telecom muting within the greater Medford area. Telecom muting involves the partial or com plete s ubstitution of telecom munications technology (such as computers, telephones, or other equipm ent) for the traditional trip to work. Ty pically this requires a Medford Transportatio n System Plan 3-35 Existing Conditions

Transportation System Plan 2018-2038