Traffic and Public Transportation

The capacity of a highway to safely move people from one location to another depends largely upon how people are arranged in vehicles and how fast they may safely drive.

A single lane of traffic can safely accommodate about 40 vehicles per mile moving at 60-mph. A typical commuter drives a vehicle containing only one passenger, the driver. So, a four lane highway can move only 80 people per minute at 60-mph in one direction under ideal conditions if they are each driving their own vehicle.

Adding more vehicles to the highway at this critical limit will reduce the spacing between the vehicles forcing them to slow down. This is always done in order to maintain safe following distance and reduce the likelihood of a wreck. If any driver makes an unexpected maneuver causing others to brake then a shock wave is initiated in the traffic stream. The slowing of traffic then proceeds back through the traffic stream, worsening until a traffic jam occurs. Such unexpected maneuvers include failure to signal a lane change, avoiding animals and debris, or lane drifting caused by inattentive driving.

A single bus carrying half its passenger capacity removes about 20 single passenger cars off the road. The plan-view illustration above shows the effects of two white buses on the traffic stream on the top roadway. This increases the safe carrying capacity of the highway allowing traffic to flow faster and safer.

Providing an alternative to driving accommodates people who have difficulty operating a vehicle because of problems such as poor vision or anxiety. The extra space reduces the chances of road rage incidents and multi-vehicle wrecks, especially during inclement weather such as a snow, fog, heavy rain, hail, or high winds.

Public Transportation and the Economy

The National Economy

The US economy was already structurally weakened by fraud, offshoring of jobs, war debts, and wasteful spending in 2008 when the price gouging of oil initiated a perfect storm of economic trouble. Commuters in the USA abandoned their private vehicles and fled to public transportation to save thousands of dollars in expenses per commuter. For many, this was perhaps the only thing standing between bankruptcy or foreclosure and sustaining our households.

When the economy recovers, the price of oil is likely to rise again because it is a non-renewable resource controlled by a powerful cartel. A temporary drop in the price of fuel for private vehicles is no cause to abandon efforts to sustain and improve public transportation. This is one of the few areas where Americans can achieve energy independence without some miraculous new technological breakthrough that may be decades away.

The Local Economy

In our mountain communities, Park-n-Ride lots overflowed in 2008. Public transportation enabled locals to get to their jobs without spending hundreds of extra dollars per month. Local businesses benefitted from the extra spending power of the commuting community that supports suburban Jefferson County and their mountain neighbors in Park County.

Continuing layoffs have shuttered many local businesses in the Conifer and Bailey regions as regular customers had their jobs taken from them. The jobs that were cut are likely to be replaced by lower paying jobs. Public transportation shall be vital to enabling mountain commuters to get to their jobs and still be able to afford to do business locally.

Real estate values have fallen throughout the country. Having ready access to economical public transportation is a major selling point for anyone who may need to sell a house and relocate to a new job.

RTD Sales Tax

The RTD tax is a separately assessed 1% sales tax charged on taxable purchases made inside the Regional Transportation District. Exceptions exist for out-of-district residents whereupon they pay the sales tax due as if the item were sold at their residence:

• If they officially take delivery of a car purchased in RTD at their residence outside RTD
• If they pay to have construction material purchased in RTD delivered to their residence outside RTD
• If they pay to have large appliances delivered to their residence outside RTD

The Bailey region of Park County is different from other counties surrounding metro Denver because many large ticket items are not available for purchase in Bailey. These items include beds, sofas, tables, stoves, dishwashers, microwaves, clothes washers and dryers, and HDTVs. Many smaller items are purchased inside RTD by Bailey residents every day. These include small appliances, clothing, jewelry, personal hygiene, cleaning products, books, electronics, video games, tools, small machines, hardware, cosmetics, pet supplies, gardening supplies, landscaping tools and plants, tires, car parts, DVDS, CDs, computers, software, and office supplies.

The following is a list of items that are not assessed the RTD sales tax:

• Groceries
• Prescription Drugs
• Energy used for Home Heating and Cooling
• Gasoline

The RTD sales tax applies to everyone in the district regardless of whether they use public transportation or not.

Taxation without Representation

Bailey, Park County, and the RTD Sales Tax

A few in-district citizens, staff, and board members of the Regional Transportation District (RTD) believe that public transportation services should not be allowed to residents of Park County through RTD. Their perception is that residents of the Bailey area, which is inside Park County, do not pay the RTD sales tax. As such, they want to prohibit metro commuters from Bailey and the Park County part of Pine Junction from using RTD.

Other FALSE beliefs include:

• The mistaken belief that RTD is funded by property taxes collected from inside the district
• The mistaken belief that the Pine Junction Park-n-Ride is located inside Park County
• The mistaken belief that the Pine Junction Park-n-Ride is only used by Bailey or Park County commuters
• The mistaken belief that Park County residents do not pay sales tax inside RTD

Base on a market profile prepared by Park County in 2008

over $243,000,000 was spent by Park County residents
outside of Park County.

Additionally, over 80% of Park Country residents living around Bailey, Pine Junction, Shawnee, and Grant are employed outside the county and inside the Regional Transportation District. Those who work outside Park County spend a lot of money where they work and along the way home.

Park County residents living around Bailey have been contributing their fair share to RTD for decades. These Park County dollars have no voice but there is a solution.

U Route Cancelled

The U Route that carried passengers from Pine Junction to the Denver Tech Center (DTC) was threatened with cancellation as far back as early 2008. The Riders285 Coalition struggled hard to prevent the discontinuation of this route. We managed to stave off execution for nearly a year. We surveyed the riders to adjust the times to better fit their schedules, set up and manned information booths with volunteers to promote public transportation usage, and increased ridership for a while. Ultimately, too many jobs in the Denver Tech Center were slashed. Ridership fell below the subsidy threshold.

The U Route was cancelled effective May 3, 2009.

A post mortem consideration on this route is that not all routes that fall below the subsidy threshold are automatically eliminated. This one was vulnerable because a substantial proportion of the riders were assumed to come from Bailey, which is outside the district.

Former riders of the U can still take C-Route buses to Civic Center Station, hop on the Mall Ride to 16th and Stout, and ride the Light Rail E or F Lines to get to DTC. Or they can hop off at Cold Springs Park-n-Ride to take a bus to DTC. This does, however, add more time to their commute.

The Parking Fee

A Hostile Act to Punish Out-of-District Residents

Castle Rock, the county seat of Douglas County, was inside of RTD in 2005. A proposal was put on the ballot in Castle Rock to secede from RTD. The Castle Rock proposal to secede from RTD was passed in the election of November 2005.

Trouble is that someone forgot to tell commuters from Castle Rock to quit using public transportation provided by RTD. Their cars continued to occupy crowded parking acreage around Mineral Station. When the T-Rex project was finished, commuters from Castle Rock flocked into Lincoln Station to ride the Light Rail to Denver. In view of this, the Colorado Legislature granted authorization to RTD to assess parking fees during the 2008 session. The statute, CRS 32-9-119.9 (1.a.I), allows RTD to charge parking fees only to out-of-district riders. RTD cannot charge parking fees to riders who live inside the district.

The parking fee is purposely designed to be inconvenient although the statute allows advance collection of the fee. It is a nuisance used to punish out-of-district riders. You cannot pay the fee in advance or buy a monthly pass. You must pay the fee as you are attempting to catch the bus. It is designed to take cash out of your wallet, add time to your commute, or even make you miss your bus.

This is nothing personal against commuters from Bailey or Park County. RTD is just being fair by punishing everyone evenly.

Since the parking fee signs went up at the Pine Junction Park-n-Ride, ridership has not changed significantly. But more commuters are resorting to kiss-n-ride drop offs to catch the bus.

The problem with this is that is has the effect of making the Pine Junction Park-n-Ride appear as if it's no longer being used. Since certain elements in the RTD staff are determined to withdraw public transportation from our mountain community, the seeming reduction of usage of the Pine Junction Park-n-Ride may provide them with a pretext to close it permanently.

No Vote = No Respect

In spite of the fact that Park County residents spend $243,0000,000 outside the county and routinely pay RTD sales tax, Park County residents get no respect because they have no vote in RTD. If you cannot or will not vote then your concerns and interests will be sidelined in favor of those who do have a vote.

Public transportation is a vital economic interest to all mountain residents and businesses along US 285 going into Park County. Riders285 Coalition has waged an increasingly difficult and complex campaign to sustain public transportation to our mountain communities while a significant proportion of the community that we support has no real ability to back up its own defense with voting power.