neighborhoods, all of those things that we’re trying to do to
maintain the livability of our area, depend on having a
successful transit system,” she says.
All of those goals and plans, Piercy says, involve
reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT). “We have seen a
real drop in traffic VMT for our area,” she says, and with
EmX she thinks the number could continue to fall, even as
the population rises.
Politics and math
P H O T O B Y R O B S Y D O R • D I G I TA L L AT T E . C O M
Oregon doesn’t have limits on political spending for
anyone. Instead, the state relies on strict public disclosure
of campaign-related financing. “That’s basically the
hammer we have to identify and root out corruption,”
Moore says.
Moore says that during elections, donors like Parks find
completely legal ways to make the money a little trickier to
follow. Instead of donating directly to anti-light rail groups,
donors can write checks to groups with more innocuous
names, like the Oregon Family Farms PAC and the Oregon
Small Business Association PAC, who then turn the money
over to the anti-light rail campaigns.
In Clackamas, Moore says, the players in the anti-rapid
transit game are changing. “In the ’90s it was more of the
anti-tax fringe who were primarily running those
campaigns,” he says. “This represents a much bigger, more
firmly established effort.”
It’s part of a new strategy that conservatives are
employing in Oregon, Moore says. “These big funders have
changed their strategy entirely,” he says. “They certainly
have deemphasized their statewide campaigns and their
statewide efforts because they lose so consistently and
instead are focused on building up local strongholds.”
But Moore says that he thinks anti-rapid transit campaign
in Clackamas is larger than just anti-public transit sentiment.
“What it is more than anything, I think, is an extension of a
basic anti-government, anti-public services campaign that’s
being waged all around the country.”
Mayor Kitty Piercy says that a similar philosophy is
present in Eugene. “Along with some folks who legitimately
are very worried about the future of their businesses — and
I’m very sensitive to their needs — there’s also a driving
philosophical force going across this country, and we’re no
exception to that,” Piercy says. “Part of that philosophical
force says, ‘Don’t spend any of the country’s resources on
things like rail and transit.’”
Convinced EmX
is BEST
While OMOT has been vocal in its opposition to the
West 11th EmX extension, its supporters haven’t made as
much noise — until now.
Better Eugene-Springfield Transit (BEST) formed as a
501(c)(3) nonprofit in May 2012 when its members decided
that the “quiet majority” needed a voice.
BEST members include members of the political spectrum
ranging from the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce to the
Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV).
“It provides better transit service,” BEST member Rob
Zako says. “It’s a little less expensive per rider, so it allows
us to use our limited transit dollars more effectively, and it
supports the kind of growth we want to see in our
community in an environmentally more sustainable way.”
Laura Potter of the Chamber says the EmX system is one
of the biggest things Eugene can do for economic
development. “It’s a way to achieve the positive economic
and social benefits of light rail without the infrastructure
costs traditionally associated with light rail,” she says. Two
of those benefits, she says, are the way a predictable
ridership can contribute to a customer base and the way it
aids redevelopment.
VOTE NOW! BESTOFEUGENE.COM
“We’ve seen on light rail systems an intensity of use of
retail, of business, of homes because you have that transit
right there,” Potter says. “EmX is poised to do the same
thing. To some extent, we’ve already seen that along the
Franklin corridor, and I think we’ll continue to see that
along the Gateway corridor.”
Potter says another aspect is the direction of cash flow
during the construction process. “It’s also important
because it brings federal dollars into our community for
infrastructure improvements, and it creates approximately
1,200 jobs over the life of the construction — those are
temporary jobs, but for people that are in the construction
field and looking for work and laid off, that’s a big deal,”
she says. “And those dollars not only go into the
infrastructure and the jobs, but then they go back into the
economy in a multitude of other ways.”
Ashley Miller of the OLCV says the convenience factor
of bus rapid transit is often the difference between whether
mass transit will work in everyday people’s lives. “Right
now, a 30-minute wait for the bus and then a 30-minute ride
on the bus is prohibitive for a lot of people, whereas
something that’s like the bus rapid transit acts like light
rail,” she says. “It gets you there really quickly and has the
dedicated stops. I think the biggest piece for the environment
is that this is something that is easy for people to use and
will lower the carbon footprint here in Eugene.”
The Chamber of Commerce statement on the West 11th
EmX acknowledges the controversy around the topic.
“Because of inconsistent city planning, a number of
properties and buildings are vulnerable to losses of property
and street access,” Potter reads. “The Chamber recognizes
that property owners may be adversely affected, and
therefore we urge LTD to fairly compensate property
owners as they work to mitigate these effects.”
Mia Nelson of 1,000 Friends of Oregon says that leaving
things as they are now or adding the West 11th EmX isn’t
really the choice City Council is making. “We can’t keep
things they way they are,” she says. “Things are going to
change no matter what we do.” The choice, Nelson says, is
between a future with or without EmX — while Eugene’s
population is expected to rise by 30,000 people or more in
the next two decades.
Jarrett Walker, Sustainable Cities Eugene’s 2012 expert-
in-residence, says that opening the West 11th EmX extension
in 2017, as LTD plans, is not at all unreasonable at this
phase in the West 11th corridor’s growth. “It may seem
premature to be talking about traffic congestion in Eugene,
especially out west, but the city is going to grow,” he says.
“Installing BRT before it is urgently needed allows future
growth to orient itself around the stations. That means that
the future city will have better pedestrian environments and
shorter walks between transit and destinations, which is
great way to permanently lock in transit’s sustainability and
attractiveness. But that only happens effectively if there’s a
BRT line in place when that development is occurring, so
that investors in the development can see the mobility
benefit on day one. That’s why it’s perfectly appropriate to
implement these lines before much growth has occurred, so
long as that growth is planned and expected.”
Piercy says that the West 11th corridor is key in the all
of the planning related to the city’s predicted growth.
“Really, every plan we have, everything that we’re working
to accomplish from compact neighborhoods, 20-minute
As the City Council readies for its Sept. 26 work session,
which could include a vote on the EmX, both sides are
readying to make their case. Piercy, who has long advocated
for the EmX, says she’ll break a tie in favor of the EmX if
there’s a 4-4 split on the council. “From the standpoint that
any of us would use to see if something is working, if we
should continue to do it, it’s been a total success story,” she
says of the EmX system. “It beat the usage predictions for
20 years in the first year.”
The last step of the review process, LTD spokesperson
Andy Vobora says, is the Federal Transit Administration
(FTA) Environmental Assessment (EA), which LTD is
working on its responses to now. In addition to almost 300
other responses, OMOT submitted the response that it hired
Dorsey and Whitney to write.
Vobora says LTD’s initial response to the OMOT
document depends on the part of the OMOT document
you’re reading because different parts seem to send different
messages. “For example, in one part of it the consultant
makes the comment that there’s 118 documents and details
are buried in these documents and kind of criticized the
process for having all these documents that people can’t
understand. And in another part of their comments they say
that we haven’t provided enough information or been
transparent,” Vobora says.
Vobora says the cost analysis in the OMOT document,
which estimates operating costs at $4.3 million annually
compared to LTD’s estimation of $1.2 million annually,
“looked at a projection for bus service miles that are
traveled by the regular system and EmX out into the future,
2031, and calculated costs that would be incurred by the
district at opening day.”
Vobora says LTD uses two different methods to estimate
cost. The first is a fully allocated cost model, which Vobora
says is conservative because it uses higher overhead costs
than will actually be implemented. “When you actually
implement a new service like that one leg of EmX, you
don’t hire an additional general manager or a new director
or a marketing rep or a finance clerk,” he says.
The other, more detailed analysis uses 2017 dollars and
uses a different gasoline average, and Vobora says the cost
of operation in that estimate drops by several hundred
thousand dollars.
“We’re not trying to sell something, and they are.
They’re trying to put forward an agenda of this is low-cost,
this is going to be less expensive, and it’s not,” Clarke of
OMOT says. “It’s based on wrong fuel consumptions for
today as well as future gas prices.”
Vobora says that they do have an estimate that takes
future gas prices into account, and regarding the fuel
consumption numbers, “We’ve always found that a little
puzzling because we’ve been operating EmX service now
for five and a half years. We know what it costs to operate
the service and we’ve learned more over that time as we’ve
had experience with the specifics of the maintenance of
those buses, the fuel economy, all those different things it
takes to put that service in place.”
Walker says that canceling the project now could cause
big problems getting funding from the FTA in the future.
“As I understand it, the West 11th project is now past the
point where it can be revised further without losing the FTA
funding, so the options are really just two: Accept the
federal funding and build the project as now designed, or
reject that funding and go back to the drawing board,” he
says. “The second option is infuriating to FTA, because
they’ve invested a lot of time and effort and planning
money in this project as well. So understandably, once a
city has a track record of doing years of planning and then
building nothing, FTA will be less impressed with any
future proposals out of that city.”
ew
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