SLAYING THE SOLO COMMUTE DRAGON--THE VERMONT CASE

Slaying the dragon of transportation: the Solo Commute to Work

Part 1: How three major Burlington employers though a staff of four slayed the dragon of solo driving in the first decade of this century

No so many years ago the Burlington, VT “Campus Area Transportation Management Association”, CATMA for short, ventured into the land of solo driving with the purpose of shifting students and employees toward greener pastures: abandoning the solo commute to work, jumping onto public transit, leaving cars home during school sessions, getting into carpools, for those still insistent traveling by car shifting them part way by into using peripheral lots and taking shuttles to worksites or classes, and walking or bicycling part or all of any trip. The CATMA bosses—the troika of University of Vermont, Fletcher Allen Health Care and Champlain College—total 10,000 employees and and 16,000 students.

The huge CATMA bureaucracy of four employees documents through periodic surveys since 2000 an amazing alteration of the transportation landscape of its troika with a 18% reduction of solo commuting, students shifting in part from bringing their cars to using Vermont Carshare services, and through partnering with the Burlington area bus provider, CCTA, helping that service move about 500 commuters onto three radiating commuter corridors out of Burlington in the Link buses, services all started within the past few years.

The 2010 CATMA survey finding of 56% of workers still solo commuting compares to a figure of 74% in 2000, a drop of 18%.   In fact the solo driving of the employees at 74% in 2000 varied little from the Census 75% statewide average for all workers statewide. The drop of about 18% in solo driving 2000 to the end of the decade does not include another roughly 12% of the solo drivers who park in peripheral lots and bus shuttle to the workplace. All in all about 30% of the troika workforce of 10,000 switched off from “pure” solo commuting since 2000.

In the 1990s transportation policy makers and planners advocated shifting commuters from solo and the untested estimates were that perhaps 10% could be encouraged though rideshare programs and incentives to get to work in some other fashion than the solo commute. The U.S. Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) initiated a “commuter choice” program and Vermont was one of the test areas aimed at the private and public employers (CATMA coordinated that effort). Commuter choice concentrated mostly on "demand management", that is, shifting solo commuters so as to reduce the number of cars on the highways, needs for parking, etc.  Still, a Vermont Department of Labor employee benefits survey last year revealed that transportation subsidies by employers ranged from 4% for employers of 1-9 workers and only 10% for the largest employers of 250 or more workers.  (Note a surface parking space which costs $30-$60 a month did not appear to be a viewed a “transportation subsidy” to the empoyers responding to the State survey.)

A combination of initiatives and fortuitous parallel developments contributed to the success of the solo commuter reduction by CATMA.  Regardless CATMA stands the mythology of the unchangeable solo commuter with the ubiquitous Ipod playlist, Starbucks cuppa, and personal parking space into just that: a myth.  In following posts, elements of the CATMA program will be detailed, parallel developments decribed, and some of the federal transportation benefits outlined.

DUMP THE BURLINGTON PARKWAY NOW!

CHITTENDEN COUNTY'S TWO HIGHWAY BOONDOGGLES: (1) $70 MILLION CONTINUATION NOW RELEGATED TO HISTORY AND (2) THE $40 BURLINGTON PARKWAY NOW DESERVING ITS TURN AT OBLIVION

Chittenden County while a third of Vermont seems to hold a monopoly on giant highway boondoggles. After $40 million in planning and design funds spent, the Circumferential (Circ) highway continuation pegged at $70 million more money finally went to a deserved deep sixing last year. Burlington's City Council vote a few years ago against the Circ certainly aided its demise. Now Burlington could use some help from other Chittenden County towns to kill off the South End's decades old Burlington Parkway, another relic of the now long gone highway age as Vermont car travel likely  hits negative numbers for this decade. The Burlington Parkway boondoggle would mount to about $40 million if ever built.

Strangely, a simple two-lane street extending from Flynn Avenue along the Parkway right-of-way with simple intersections at Home Avenue and Pine Street “feeding” the waiting I 189 access stub, a “I 189 Feeder” if you will, would accomplish most of the stated purposes with little expense and avoid the specter of blowing out Pine Street, Lakeside Avenue and generally making a mess of an emerging mixed use neighborhood home to schools, commercial and light manufacturing, and residential areas. Much of the truck traffic to and from the west border along with commuters would use the I 189 Feeder thereby reducing traffic on neighborhoods, relieving traffic numbers on Shelburne Road, and make the mid-Pine Street area attractive for desirable land uses. Besides, it is the Lakeside Avenue connection and pressure on mid-Pine Street that draws the opposition, legimate in my view.

And the immense cost of the overall project—about $40 million—could fund, for example, the complete cost of rail upgrades and outright purchase of necessary passenger equipment for Burlington to Montpelier commuter rail with enough money left over to fund operating costs for a few years (Vermont's two Amtrak trains now receive about $4 million a year in State funds). 

Perhaps as important, if traffic represents the concern the way to reduce Pine Street traffic numbers already has been well proven in other parts of the City.

Burlingtonians and other Vermonters already show that with a little incentive they leave their cars home (or altogether) in droves. In the last few years alone, a third of Burlington-Montpelier commuters abandoned car travel for the Chittenden County Transportation Authority (CCTA) “Link” services (22 buses each workday) and Links now serve hundreds in three corridors out of Burlington with 46 buses. The 260 commuters on the Montpelier Link this coming year represent 10-15% of the peak traffic on I 89 between Waterbury and Montpelier with traffic down on the section by 7% since 2000. The point is we can now manage traffic and actually reduce it on busy streets, whether it is Pine Street or Main Street, as the old days of ever growing car travel has ended--Vermont and the rest of New England States grew an average of 3% for the entire decade, 2000-2010 and the average likely goes negative for the current decade.

The Burlington City Council can call a halt to the Parkway, request a refocus toward a I 189 Feeder and maybe reallocate funds to more needed priorities in this post-auto age, like commuter rail, roundabouts, and programs to encourage further use of less auto-centric modes of travel.

COMMUTER PROGRAMS AND INTERSTATE TRAFFIC IMPACTS

IF ABOUT 260 BURLINGTON-MONTPELIER, VT COMMUTERS TRAVEL BY “LINK” BUS THIS YEAR, THEN WHY SO MANY CARS ON INTERSTATE I 89....NOT

Earlier this week this Blog described the phenomenal growth of commuters on “Link” bus services since being introduced about 2005 with words like “astounding” and “astonishing,” as symbolic of a seismic shift from car travel in Vermont and New England. And in a changed commuting environment this Blog has also advocated for immediate installation of commuter rail services in the commuter corridors leading to and from Burlington as the first step in establishing a statewide rail passenger network.

A parallel finding in a Blog this week found the joint transportation services agency formed by three major employers recorded employee surveys results of a solo driving decline of 15% 2000-2010. The “troika” of Burlington employers—Fletcher Allen Health Care, University of Vermont and Champlain College--employment totals 10,000 workers.

If so many commuters ride the Link services now—about 225 this year daily in the Burlington-Montpelier corridor alone—and employees of three major Burlington have switched to everything from bicycling to carpooling and public transit, then why are so many cars still traveling the I 89 corridor between Burlington and Montpelier? Well, in actuality, as one would expect, traffic numbers decline on I 89 since 2000 on a key leg reflect in part the switch of solo drivers to bus and car sharing. The Link services and the “troika” programs designed to decease solo driving to some degree are reflected in traffic numbers on I 89.

From a 2006 average through April this year, traffic along I 89 between Middlesex and Montpelier declined 7 percent. This stretch of interstate contains a minimum of short distance “local” traffic and mostly longer distance trips in the 40 mile Burlington-Montpelier corridor. Even a look at a longer interval shows a tiny annual 0.2% gain in traffic numbers starting 15 years ago in 1997 to April this year.

Another key question is how a decline of 225 commuters daily impacts the “peak” travel as commuter buses primarily service the 7-9 am and 4-6 pm peak hours, the times most traffic engineers look at because these are the “congestion” hours on the highway system. Again, what is the the impact of 225 commuters switching from car travel? Assume half switched to a Link service versus a solo drive and the other half from a carpool of three—the impact of those 225 represent a 9% decline in peak hour travel on I 89 between Middlesex and Montpelier where 12-month daily traffic numbered 24,151 this April. The idea that the rugged individual Vermonter would never give up the sacred car to take a bus to work truly belongs to the mythology of yesteryear.  (Note all 225 commuters are ascribed to a peak period of 10% of total travel in one direction.)

In summary, the daily 22 Link commuter service buses in the Burlington-Montpelier corridor clearly contribute to the depressing or declining of I 89 traffic numbers and that impact amounts to a sizable proportion. Transportation planners and policy makers mostly gave lip service in the past to “demand” management centered on employer programs and public transit impacting car travel, often dismissing impacts as being insignificant, most probably in the low single digit territory—no more! Those assumptions must deal with the new reality that public transportation and programs to divert workers from solo driving can and are having a substantial impact. And workers and employers alike seek alternatives to costly commuting by car. With Vermont car traffic expected to drop slightly this decade that decline will likely be accelerated by growing efforts of employers and public programming aimed at reducing commuting costs, saving energy and cutting pollution. Alternatives to solo driving offer less stressful and safer travel choices. It is apparent expanding public transit makes employment and businesses accessible to a working population increasingly resistant to using an automobile to get from here to there.