Kissing Off 15,000 to 20,000 Bys Travelers in Vermont

VERMONT REFUSES TO IMPROVE TRANSPORTATION CONNECTION TO ITS BIGGEST EXPORT CUSTOMER—CANADA

While the Yorkers and Quebecois merrily travel Amtrak daily between Montreal and several stops in New York along the way to New York City, Vermonters and their brethren to the north face expensive forced in second class busing right now with no connections to Vermont’s two Amtrak trains which terminate in New York City and Washington.  When the Montreal bus connection to Amtrak at St. Albans got severed some years ago about 10,000 riders disappeared traveling on a Vermont supported train, adding to the deficit Vermont taxpayers continue to anti up to this day.

The lesson learned at a transportation research conference held this June across the river from Detroit at the center of Canadian auto industry was that stifling trade  caused by inferior transportation facilities or unnecessary red tape and poor cross-border services costs tens of thousands of jobs on each side of the international border.  It just cuts business transactions for both nations.  The  current lack of a Montreal-St. Albans bus connection to our Amtrak trains represents an example of one such “stifle.”  Sure both sides of the border agree to re-establish the rail connection St. Albans-Montreal but meanwhile the positive economic benefits to both—and perhaps 15,000-20,000 potential travelers yearly goes untapped.

The lack of a Montreal-St. Albans-Amtrak connection represents an even more important fact of life—it is part of the larger export market process between our State and our largest customer, Canada, the destination of about 40% of our total exports.

Canada-Vermont trade depends as it does for rest of the U.S. on making cross border travel and rules for goods movement as simple and inexpensive as possible.  Losing the past 10,000 riders a year connecting Montreal to our Vermont Amtrak trains is a clear example of Vermont trading policy gone amok.  Yes Vermont and Quebec governments agree on bringing customs clearance at Montreal’s Gare Centrale but this requires federal action on the part of both nations and there other fish to fry of more importance than duplicating the kind of service provided in Vancouver which more than doubled the Amtrak Portland-Vancouver passenger service numbers.

Restoring the bus link today would surely increase revenues in excess of $1 million over the cost of bus service thereby reducing Vermont tax dollars supporting the two Amtrak trains.  The Amtrak/bus connection to Montreal provides another way for folks to travel in high quality service to and from Burlington’s airport which continues to struggle to maintain its passenger numbers, numbers heavily dependent on a continued infusion of Quebec flyers taking advantage of lower Burlington air fares possible only because of the much higher landing fees charged airlines at Canadian airports.  Easy access by bus/Amtrak from Canada means more potential business for both winter and summer recreation here, and for both Chittenden and Franklin County tourism-oriented businesses.

Most Americans believe China is the U.S.’s biggest trading partner, but exports to China are dwarfed by Canada—always has and always likely will.   For 2013 our exports to Canada were $302 billion, two and a half times that of China, $122 billion.

Wolf concludes his Burlington Free Press column reporting these figures bemoaning the fact that “Vermont firms do not seem to be participating in the global economy as much as are firms elsewhere…” and that this does not “bode well” future Vermont economic growth.

Already this fall after years of construction the major segment of two-lane highway between the Highgate border station and St. Jean, QC will be replaced by four lane divided highway cutting travel time by about 15 minutes between Montreal and the U.S. border with a full corridor of divided highway within a year or so cutting a total of about 20 minutes off the current trip.  This makes the Montreal-St. Albans/Amtrak connection even more economically attractive and effective as an express bus connection not only is shorter in travel time but also assures a more attractive leave and arrival time at Gare Centrale. 

One place State government working just with Quebec could start is through transportation connection improvements to Quebec—and a Montreal-Amtrak at St. Albans service surely can help trade with our northern neighbor as well as make a profit too for our Vermont taxpayers!

DEMAND MANAGEMENT MUCH IN DEMAND

DEMAND MANAGEMENT MUCH IN DEMAND BY VERMONT CUSTOMERS

Apparently lots of the greater Burlington region commuters take to the Link buses which for a typical commuter between Montpelier and Burlington can increase the household dollars available—after taxes—by upwards of $7,000 yearly.

With just a month to go in the operational year of the Link buses between Burlington and the outlying connections—Middlebury Milton, Montpelier and St. Albans—ridership sets a new record, about 200,000 for the year and a growth of over 11% after a 14% increase last year.  From another standpoint about 440 workers now make their way back and forth to work on one of the 50 Link buses.  At the current growth rate that number will increase to about 500 this time next year, a number approaching 2% of all workers who cross the Burlington border to their jobs each weekday.

Pretty good growth numbers considering little change in the employment numbers statewide, a decline in car travel 2010-2011, and a state population increase Census estimates at 11 persons a month since the 2010 official counts.

Some of the growth of the decade-old Link services operated mostly by the Chittenden County Transportation Authority (CCTA) occurred as the result of active programs to reduce solo driving, particularly by three of the largest employers in Burlington, the “troika” of Champlain College, Fletcher Allen Health Care (FAHC) and the University of Vermont  (UVM).  The “troika” works through their joint small entity, the Campus Area Transportation Management Association (CATMA) which undertakes a number of initiatives aimed at encouraging and rewarding their 10,000 employees and 16,000 students to switch from solo driving to car share, walking, bicycling and taking public transit.  Discount or free transit, for example, is offered students and workers by CATMA, including Link bus services.  And, the numbers taking Link and other transit services reflects the CATMA efforts to reduce solo driving which is called in transportation language the realm of “demand management.”  The goals of demand management may vary, but the central mission in demand management is to reduce the use of certain transportation facilities so as to avoid expensive capital expenditures to increase capacity—assuming increasing capacity is even possible in a given situation (consider the cost, for example, of widening Main Street in downtown Brattleboro or Bennington).

The future looks bright for “demand management” as increasingly young driving age population aged 15-30 no longer even have a driver license and efforts in the demand management remain in the early stages of development.  CATMA is beginning to work with the State’s largest public employer, IBM in Essex, for example.  Further, the largest State employer, the State of Vermont itself, until now stayed on the sidelines in providing support or alternatives to solo commuting.  But a sudden scarcity of parking in Montpelier caused by relocation of workers after loss of State facilities from the storm Irene in the fall of 2011 resulted just recently in starting demand management on the part of the State.  A few dollars a month cost to the State to convince an employee to drop solo commuting pales by comparison to the $600 for a ground level parking space per year and up to $30,000 to $40,000 per space capital cost in a parking garage. 

Meanwhile, CCTA this year added larger buses to handle the highest ridership Link between Burlington and Montpelier—also growing at the highest rate of 13% since last year.  Finally, the growth of Link services and demand management programs confirm the findings in a recent study touting the potential for commuter rail services along the corridors from Burlington to Middlebury, Montpelier and St. Albans. 

FORCED BUSING—AN UNFAIR COMMUTER TRANSPORTATION PRACTICE

Feel “transportation discrimination”? Well be a commuter in or out of Burlington, VT exercising “commuter choice” by abandoning the car and what do you get?--second-class transportation in the form of a stuffy, jammed and sometimes standing room only bus (and room for only two bicycles). Welcome to the transportation quality of service typically found in less developed nations!

The first paragraph clearly paints a totally unfair picture of the Chittenden County Transportation's (CCTA) spectacularly successful commuter buses, the “Link” services introduced in the last few years--east to Montpelier, north to St. Albans and south to Middlebury. CCTA ranks as one of the best is not the best public transportation services in the nation in a small Metro. But the first paragraph description also indisputably tells us that the regional commuter routes by bus only, the Link services shouldered by CCTA, primarily reflect a State responsibility, a failed responsibility to date marked by clear lack of foresight and policy direction. The commuter environment shows, again, the citizens and their demand for modern transportation finds public leadership either asleep or scrambling to catch up (or both!). As the saying goes, the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VAOT), the Legislative Transportation Committees and northwest Vermont regional planning agencies “just don't get it.”

Every month Burlington bound and Burlington outbound commuter numbers increase with 310 commuters regularly served by Link buses, roughly 20% of the potential commuter market. The three older Link services growth since last July average 26%, not including a fourth Link service between Burlington and Milton begun within the past year.

Regional planners and the VAOT focus goes to all kinds of new “park and ride” investments while ignoring in the first place of providing a quality set of services built around self-propelled, high passenger capacity, rail-diesel passenger equipment. Moreover current Link services leave the State's largest private employer, IBM with its unique railside access, unserved and a skeletal service to downtown Waterbury (from Burlington only) with its major State complex.

Note that free commuter park-and-ride lots and employee parking continue a major subsidy to workers, a subsidy generally discontinued in mature public transportation services, including commuter rail. In the meantime all one needs to know about federal priorities comes from the fact that every type of commuting to work qualifies the commuter for one individual income tax credit or benefit of another except one—walking.

Note that a review of the three Burlington corridors—east, north and south—market potential for commuter rail amounts to about 5,000. Certainly an initial potential use of commuter rail based on Link performance might well reach 30% or 1,500 commuters. The Link services as well as shuttle connections from rail stations would continue as a supplement and feeder for what really becomes an overall integrated rail/bus system. Bicycle and walking modes facilities supporting the integrated network must be a given.

Then there is the larger question of inter-city services enabled by current Link type services today, for examples, connecting Burlington to St. Johnsbury via Montpelier and Burlingon to Rutland via Middelbury. While inter-city and commuter rail services get separate treatments in terms of federal funding, in a small state like Vermont they naturally overlap. The recent Vermont intercity routes built off commuter Link and Link-type services (plus Amtrak) perfectly illustrate how both services connect an re-enforce each other. Extensions of commuter rail to eventually provide intercity links to every major community along with services designed to strengthen the tourist industry also naturally grow out of upgrading tracks and building of commuter rail services. The choices for rail clearly find expression in three major studies dating from 1989—the only thing remaining comes in dusting off the studies and build off the pioneering commuter services CCTA and other public transit agencies have built which show a new reality as more and more Vermonters want out of the unsustainable and uneconomic auto-centric lifestyle.

Time now to catch the growing wave of commuters wanting a quality alternative to car commuting which awaits Legislative, regions, and VAOT leadership. All aboard!