Bull City Rising

DATA looks for input on service directions

Durham's local bus system, DATA, is asking citizens to submit feedback on its services and programs to guide service directions in its next short-range transit plan:

Durham Area Transit Authority (DATA) is seeking public input on its short-range transit plan to guide its service improvements over the next five years.

“With the increase in ridership, it is a great time to start looking at the future of transit and how we can best serve the residents of Durham over the next five years,” said Cha’ssem Anderson, transportation planner for the City of Durham.  “Receiving public input has always been a large part of how we plan for improvements to our system.  This request for public input is the first of a series of public input requests over the next six months.”

Want to give input? Complete DATA's online survey form before August 1. (We trust the DATA team has also made surveys available in paper format to be convenient to riders, or folks without Internet access?)

Among the possible improvement priorities include 15-minute headways, increased night service, more bus shelters, fare-free service (a concept rejected to date by City Council), and more park and ride lots.

Personally, I'm hoping to see more information in the short-range transit plan about the level of capital investment in the DATA service, particularly after encountering the numbers we looked at here a few weeks ago that showed Durham's fleet carries twice as many passenger miles per bus as the Chapel Hill or Raleigh systems, raising questions in my mind as to whether the City is investing enough in bus services (or alternatively, whether it's just running an efficient, popular system.)

Durham: The roads are quieter here

Speaking of transportation: ne of the best reasons for living in Durham, from a purely practical perspective, is the terrific commute it affords. Whether heading to the massive Duke campus and hospitals complex, downtown, NCCU, or jobs down at RTP, the perception I typically hear from fellow residents is that there's rarely a traffic jam to be found (especially since I-85's widening completed last year.)

Here's proof of a different form: average annual daily traffic counts, in thousands of vehicles per day, as of 2006. (Figures in red are actual 2006 values; those in blue are estimated 2006 numbers. These data (like those of buses) come from a report prepared for the N.C. Turnpike Authority.)

BCR's suggestion? Try these numbers on for conversational size next time you're out with friends -- assuming, of course, it's not in Cary or Raleigh on a Friday night after they (and you) have fought tens of thousands of cars trying to get past Harrison Avenue.

DATA ridership up slightly; is choice ridership or service quality to blame?

Monica Chen's article in today's H-S repeats the wisdom being received from many media outlets, that buses and trains are getting busier throughout much of the Triangle, with the Triangle Transit intracity system getting a 30.2% boost in ridership year-over-year in June. Amtrak services have had an 11.7% increase to boot.

Yet DATA, Durham's city-run bus system, has seen ridership increase only a measly 5.4% in the first half of '08 vs. '07.

There are, of course, many possible reasons this could be so. For one thing, using a bus for, say, a 5-7 mile commute within the city of Durham is so much less convenient than driving a car the same distance. Such that for so-called "riders of choice" -- those who are able to afford to own and operate a car -- it's often just not compelling to use transit for short trips.

For the longer inter-city trips, like the Durham-to-Raleigh express route, the fastest-growing one in Triangle Transit's system, the much larger savings in pricey gasoline costs and the reduction in I-40 commuting stress are much greater, and more likely to draw riders of choice.

Which would explain the faster growth. If you can't afford to own a car and use the bus service daily anyway, you're already using the bus system and energy price-sensitive growth wouldn't be likely to occur.

But is it strictly Durham's geographic size that governs the impracticality of broad use and adoption of bus service? Chen suggests otherwise in her reporting:

And according to the hot and frustrated passengers waiting for DATA buses in the sweltering heat downtown Thursday afternoon, service has gotten worse.

Many commuters at the terminal in front of West Village said the wait is often 30-40 minutes, sometimes an hour. Buses don't come on time and drivers are often impatient, pulling away before everyone can get on.

"A lot of people with good jobs are now riding the bus. The gas prices are making them think of this now," said Willie Jackson, a disabled man who waited in the heat in a crisp white shirt and gray dress pants.

We haven't looked closely at DATA since last summer's daily-commuting series on the subject. But since then, I've come across the following intriguing data point, which dates back to 2005 service numbers from each of the major local bus systems:

Old Loehmann's Plaza looks confirmed for traffic light -- will the H-Teet follow?

As commenter Jeremy noted on an older story here on the blog, it looks like next Tuesday's NCDOT meeting on the widening of Hillandale Rd. between I-85 and Carver will cement everyone's least-favorite government agency's intent to add a traffic light at Bertland Ave., providing much-improved access to the aging Loehmann's Plaza shopping center:

When last we approached this story, the Herald-Sun had broken the news that shopping center owner Glenwood Development Co. felt they could hook Harris Teeter as a tenant as part of a remodeled shopping center, if NCDOT were to add a traffic light as opposed to adding an unbroken concrete median making access to or from the center from northbound Hillandale difficult.

Get DATA output for no input: Free rides on Durham buses today

With gas prices peaked over $4 per precious gallon, it's been a good idea to try Durham's DATA bus service or the interregional Triangle Transit service for some time now.

Today, though, riding DATA is an idea that $1 better per trip. Cell phone company Cricket is sponsoring free rides on the DATA system (and Raleigh's CAT bus) throughout the day to celebrate the company's one-year anniversary offering service in the region.

Just hop aboard any fixed-route DATA bus today and the ride is free.

If you're stopping at the downtown bus transfer station, you can sign up to win one of a number of prizes, including free DATA bus fare for a year.

Triangle Transit releases five-year plan for regional public transportation

Given the skepticism of the Lockies to mass transit as a forerunner of Soviet-style encouragement over "desirable" land use planning -- they're already grousing about the local-option transit tax option for the Triangle wending its way through the General Assembly, a subject we'll tackle shortly -- one might think that from a pure P.R. standpoint, terming something a five-year plan for transit might evoke too many Stalinist comparisons.

Happily, the transit folks in the region aren't stymied by such worries, though at least they've couched this latest plan under the more benign term "Short-Range Transit Plan." This half-decade proposal provides a near-term list of priorities for the regional agency, which operates intraregion bus services and was intended to deliver rail-based transit to the region, an effort stopped at the Federal level during the George W. Bush administration, leading the agency to regroup through the recent STAC process.

The proposal recommends coordinating planning with the transit development plan process underway for DATA's own services in this coming fiscal year, while adding a demonstration on-bus wi-fi program on up to twenty fleet vehicles. Triangle Transit also plans a long list of "passenger amenities" improvements, including a park-and-ride lot for transit latecomer Wake Forest, though Durham should expect to only see a bus shelter added at the NC 54/NC 55 intersection this coming year.

FY2010 would see more benches, shelters, trash cans and bike racks added in Durham, particularly in the Duke/medical center, downtown and South Durham areas. A park-and-ride lot supporting Person-to-Durham service along with expanded fleetwide wi-fi is proposed for the last three years of the plan, as is a Burlington-to-Durham service proposed for partnership with Duke University.

H-S: Cole-McFadden allegedly violated City lobbying rule on MV contract

In the wake of the Herald-Sun's coverage of the Cora Cole-McFadden angle on the DATA bus contract last week, Ray Gronberg's back today with a look at a new angle on the material coming out of the Tom Hartley firing case.

In case you missed it, Tom Hartley -- the former manager of the DATA bus service on behalf of outsourced provider MV Transportation -- won a $172,000 judgment from MV in a wrongful termination hearing. The arbitrator found Hartley was fired over reporting an environmental violation as well as due to racial discrimination. The H-S reporting notes the arbitrator highlighted a conversation from mayor pro tem Cole-McFadden with MV officials in which the Durham native made a comment that Durham needed a racially-mixed management team.

The picture clouded further in this morning's Herald-Sun with reports that Cole-McFadden met privately with Hartley, MV co-owner Feysan Lodde, and then-MV attorney (now state senator) Floyd McKissick Jr.

That meeting occured between a Monday night Council meeting and a Thursday work session; the MV contract vote was postponed from the former until the latter meeting at Cole-McFadden's request.

According to the H-S:

While all [participants] were together, Hartley talked "a little about his background" and what he'd done in life "to give Ms. Cole-McFadden a better picture" of him, Fulghum said, attributing the information to a deposition from Tieskotter.

Eventually, though, Lodde and Cole-McFadden left the group and met one-on-one. Hartley testified that their conference lasted for 15 to 20 minutes.

When they emerged, Cole-McFadden "said that she no longer had any concerns about Mr. Hartley and she would not stand in the way of the contract being awarded to MV," Fulghum said, summarizing what Hartley and Tieskotter said in direct testimony to arbitrator Jonathan Harkavy.

No one other than the two women knows what they said to each other. Neither testified in the arbitration.

The meeting reportedly violated the prohibition on lobbying built in to the RFP process by Public Works, which required bidders to refrain from "engag[ing] in any discussion concerning the award of the contract with any council member of the Durham City Council."

As with the earlier article, Cole-McFadden and MV did not respond to the H-S' inquiries.

Will this become a tempest in a teapot, or the beginning of a larger issue around the bidding process and the mayor pro tem's role? Expect this to be on the mind of many local political-watchers in the days and weeks to come.

DATA manager allegations draw scrutiny on Cole-McFadden

The Herald-Sun broke an eyebrow-raising account yesterday of the arbitration ruling against MV Transportation, the outsourced operator of the DATA city bus service, in finding that MV fired former DATA manager Tom Hartley both as retaliation for alerting city officials to environmental violations, and -- in what's attracting much more attention -- as a result of "racial discrimination."

That latter discrimination, according to the arbitrator, began after Mayor pro tem Cora Cole-McFadden supposedly told MV executives during a summer 2005 community event that diversity was important to see in city services. According to the N&O's and H-S's reporting:

Cole-McFadden said that MV "needed some diversity in [its] management ranks" and that "we are proud of diversity in Durham, and we just can't have that [an all white management team]," according to Harkavy's ruling....

Shortly after Cole-McFadden's remarks, Harkavy wrote, Russell Tieskotter, an MV vice president, told Tom Irvin, then the assistant manager of DATA, "we need a black manager here."

...

The company fired Hartley that fall and replaced him with a black woman, Yolanda White.

Harkavy said White "did not meet MV's own published qualifications for the job of general manager," as she lacked a college degree and experience managing a contract like Durham's.

The company also failed to discipline her for DATA performance problems [14 days of non-full fleet operations, vs. 1 under Hartley] worse than any during Hartley's tenure, undercutting its claim that it fired Hartley over his job performance, the arbitrator said.

Triangle Parkway proposal moves forward to connect Durham Freeway, new NC-540 segment

In the hubbub of last week's City Manager news, we almost let slip past the news (covered well by the N&O) that the state House has taken an important next step in the funding of the Triangle Parkway.

The Triangle Parkway is a proposed toll road to connect NC 147 (the Durham Freeway) from its current terminus at T.W. Alexander Dr. an additional 3.4 miles through Research Triangle Park, joining up with NC-540's 12-mile Western Wake segment running down to Holly Springs.

Last year's N.C. state budget lacked the funding that the N.C. Turnpike Authority had requested to close the financial gap between the cost of building these toll roads and their projected revenue. After intensive review of transportation needs by several special committees over the past year, the House has agreed to a $25 million annual subsidy of the NCTA (a figure that, the N&O reports, will almost double in the coming years) to provide the gap funding needed in order to get these roads underway.

As we talked about here in March, look for this road coupled with the East End Connector to become an important one-two punch in creating a real north-south freeway link between fast-growing Western Wake Co. and the I-85 corridor. (It's joked in Durham that all the roads run N-S, none E-W; it's historically been just the opposite for the Triangle region as a whole.)

Still, don't look for the freeway extension to lack its opponents. As noted in our March story, some have complained that the closure of the second T.W. Alexander Dr. exit (the one south of I-40) will force a detour onto Sigh-Forty or the payment of a new toll; others have griped that North Carolina is entering uncharted new ground by getting into the toll road business in the first place.

Assuming the Senate concurs and the proposal is signed into law by Gov. Easley, look for construction on the cashless-system toll road to begin this fall.

H-S: East End Connector creeps closer towards full funding

Good news from today's Herald-Sun about the future of the East End Connector. If you're new to the project scene, the EEC is a short (2.5 mile) highway that would link US 70 with the Durham Freeway in East Durham, creating a direct freeway connection between I-85, RTP and downtown -- likely reducing the strain of North Durham commuter traffic on residential city streets near the urban core.

The newest version of the state's road-construction plan will include $32 million more for Durham's long-planned East End Connector, the city's delegate on the N.C. Board of Transportation says.

That allocation follows earlier commitments of nearly $100 million and keeps the project on track for a 2013 construction start, board member and Durham lawyer Ken Spaulding said Wednesday....

Spaulding and other local officials likely have to find at least another $30 million in the next year or so to fully fund the project.

Kudos for Spaulding -- who's been an effective advocate for Durham needs on the highly-politicized Board of Transportation -- and to City and County leaders and the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro MPO planning organization for keeping their collective eyes on the ball, focusing on getting funding for the EEC.

We'll leave as past history the fact that Durham, the fourth-largest city in North Carolina, has been historically underserved by state urban loop funding, which has supported projects not only in larger cities like Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte, but also to smaller urbs like Fayetteville and Wilmington. In fairness, some of that bypass seems to date back to Durham's understandable desire not to see the Eno Drive loop built, but with civic leaders solidly behind the EEC, it's time for catch-up.

To that end, Ray Gronberg's H-S article points out that Durham leaders have agreed to re-divert state funds available under the rather inequitable "equity formula" to the project. Wisely, the NCDOT is also looking at making the EEC merely four lanes instead of six lanes, while leaving room to allow for future road expansion once NC 147 is widened to six lanes itself, a project that is likely over a decade away.