Ateam88

Yes, ridership is dismal – even with all those transfer points we have now that artificially boost the ridership numbers.

And yes, transit is a hard sell especially when you look at all the money poured into systems and start doing nose counts. Its even harder to justify in a region like the Treasure Valley with its low population density. Even the Valley Ride consultant report comments about our low density. That’s really interesting considering Valley Ride is advocating high density (15 minute) service schedules. Guess we’re not supposed to read consultant reports : – )

Please tell more about the membership dues. Seems that’s something Valley Ride forgot to tell us (and the legislature) about. Do you have an estimate of the total annual amount contributed? What it can be used for – operations, capital equipment, etc.? I noticed on a Valley Ride financial statement that there’s about $ 2 – 3 million sitting in the kitty right now. Any ideas on what that can be used for? Hiring lobbyists?

As to hillbillies, maybe they recognize a defective “silver bullet” when they see it and aren’t overwhelmed by city slickers hired guns. The one Ada County representative on the Committee who voted against the bill seems to have been pretty consistent in his position all along. His vote should have come as no surprise.

The mayor and council are VERY, VERY, VERY HAPPY to approve massive condos and hundreds of row houses that result in massive traffic increases! All they are trying to do is create a problem so they can propose a fix – more local taxes (to the tune of a BILLION $) so we can build a railroad to nowhere!

Then they scream when ACHD has to deal with the problem. Mr. know it all Franden almost lost his seat at ACHD – it would have been best if he had lost. We simply need to get these folks replaced with people that can actualy talk and who have the guts to plan ahead and not make really stupid decisions like rebuilding Curtis road TWICE!

The voters can do a lot to fix this problem in November! Get all your friends ready.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, there will always be a tendancy to protect turf which will lead to bickering….Besides what would all the Statesman reporters do if they could’t keep up with the political bickering. Maybe “appointed” representatives could do better…doesn’t seem to get us too far with ITD though. I definately don’t have the “silver bullet” to fine tune ACHD, just know people usually get more accomplished by cooperating not continually attacking.

T. Simpson, your last comment about the hillbillies trying to keep it that way. I think you can look to 3 Ada County Representatives that controlled that vote. The House Majority Leader was the hillbilly with the biggest hammer to swing either direction.

4523..The reason the coalition is silent on ridership is two-fold. First, they would have to admit that current ridership is dismal. Second, if you look at the amount of $$$$ spent and apply the highest riderships from around the country transit is still a very hard sell to many. However, if we don’t mention ridership rates, maybe nobody will ask:-) And to your comments about the other Cities pitching in….An overwhelming portion of VRT local funding comes from membership dues paid on a per capita basis by all member agencies.

Cities such as Eagle, Kuna, Star, Middleton, Notus, Wilder, Parma, Greenleaf, and Melba are all members. While the actual dollar figures they pay seem small, the funding formula seems fair. The VRT dues paying member the G Man will like the best is CCDC.

EDITOR NOTE–While the small towns pay on a per capita basis, do they have “one man one vote” per capita representation?….does Boise have 10 times the votes of Eagle etc.?

ACHD has had its trials in recent years. Some caused by the same groups that now call for its dissolution. Is it broke? No. Does it need some fine tuning? Yes. But dissolving it isn’t the answer.

The Guardian was correct. If ACHD is dissolved then duplication of effort will run rampant and local taxpayers will bear the burden. I would suggest it is a model that many parts of the country could follow. For a “quaint third world country,” Idaho does have some ideas that both work and save taxpayers money.

As to comments by T. Simpson:

Actually Boise City has 2 seats on the Valley Ride Board. The Board has 28 members. Does Boise City really have control of the “city” buses with 2 seats out of 28?

My point was that the Mayor and Council had more direct control over the bus system when it actually “owned” it. If the Mayor is advocating dissolving a regional highway district to regain control of the streets then maybe he should do the same for the regional bus system. The concept is the same. And for the record I support a regional approach to issues.

And yes, the bus system here is dysfunctional and yes, according to the Coalition report, both Idaho and Mississippi do not provide either state funding for transit or local option tax funding for transit. But throwing money at transit won’t solve its underlying problem. The most elusive number in town seems to be what the ridership will be after we get done spending that $ 1 billion the Coalition proposes spending. The Coalition report is strangely silent on that part.

As to transit funding locally, maybe its time Meridian, Eagle and Kuna start contributing to Valley Ride. The same for cities in Canyon County that don’t contribute now (Nampa and Caldwell do).

Maybe even all those Chamber members (it was the big dogs in that group that supported the local option tax bill not the small ones ) could start putting up some big bucks as local match to federal grants or start sponsoring bus routes.

After all, wasn’t it the Chamber that thought it was such a great idea to local option overtax us to the tune of $ 15 million a year so we could have the pipe dream of “high capacity transit?”

So much for “significant misunderstanding.”

As far as the ACHD thing goes, I think we are missing each other…I believe that most of the problems could be solved by leaving the funding structure, staff, organization, equipment, crew, procedures etc intact and simply replacing the idependent commissioners with reps from Boise, Ada County, Star, etc. etc. That said the funding situation wouldn’t change, just the bickering would be removed. As Sharon pointed out there is going to be less finger pointing and more work.

LOL on this one, “…what’s another underfunded trans system between friends.” And the hillbillies from the rest of the state (and some local) aim to keep it that way.

You are correct: every year a discussion takes place about ACHD’s inadequacies, yet nothing improves. In 2002, when a petition was brought to the County Commission asking that the voters be allowed to decide whether ACHD should continue to exist, I voted to put the question on the ballot and let the public decide. My colleagues both voted no. They said they first wanted to know what would replace ACHD, in case the public voted to do away with it.

After that, once again, the Idaho legislature stepped in and made the process of getting the question to the ballot significantly harder by requiring a huge number of signatures on a petition. The legislature seems to believe its role is to protect ACHD from the voters. I don’t think that is their responsibility.

It’s now almost five years later and you are correct that all that ever happens is talk, and no action is ever taken to actually improve things. I voted to put the question to the voters, not only because I believe it is our right to decide how we will be governed, but also because it would have FORCED the discussion about replacing ACHD with something else and there would have been a time limit – Election Day!

You made my point about accountability when you said, “In most cases of road project failures mentioned in this post City officials had a stronger hand in the failure than ACHD.” Weak ACHD commissioners are no excuse for bad decisions. Demanding city elected officials are no excuse for bad decisions. But, how does the public know who to hold accountable when the City and ACHD can endlessly point fingers and blame the other for the problems?

At least by having the City elected officials making their own comp plan, development and transportation decisions, within City limits, we would know who to hold accountable.

Maybe the current proposal is not the best idea out there yet. It does, however, seem to have a considerable coalition of supporters behind it, which will be necessary for any change to ever be implemented. Whether what we really need is ACHD election reform, or reforming the whole structure of the agency, let’s stop just talking about making changes for the better, and go ahead and get something done about it.

ACHD seems to impress me as being in the same situation as what got the republicans thrown out of office in Nov 06..at least what the general consensus was…they are more concerned with keeping themselves in power and justifying themselves (“patting themselves on the back” as JJ accurately says) than actually doing their jobs.

The bus system is dysfunctional because it is, as an understatement, radically underfunded. There is only one other state in the same transit funding situation as us, Mississippi…enough said there. It’s dysfunctional??? SHOCKING! REALLY??!! It’s like giving someone a beating and then berating them for bleeding and beating them some more. Unbelievable.

In terms of boisecynic’s comments about 30th street, ACHD didn’t have the money for the 30th street extension construction…nothing was delayed.

4523A stated that “…taking back the city part of the local bus operation from our so called Regional Transportation Authority.” This shows a significant misunderstanding, Boise is already in control of it by virtue of the fact they have a seat on the bus agency board…a very common structure in the rest of the country. I’ve also heard the rest of the country has something called “community colleges”, daycare “standards” and (with exception of Mississippi) funding for busses. “Come visit a quaint third world country…southwest Idaho is calling.”

The current situation w/ACHD having a separate elected body is so bad it’s embarassing….I tell people I’m from Fargo to save face. JJ hit the nail on the head, is it Ada County/ACHD that has it right or is the rest of the country right?? It seems odd we are the only peoople to have an entirely separate road agency with it’s own elected body in an area that thinks it’s for “small government”. These geniuses still support GW Bush even though he’s grown the fed government into a grotesque monstrosity. Brilliant, just brilliant.

The fact is there are conflicts that should be able to be worked out but can’t because basic functions are unnecessarily segmented out and represented by different elected representatives. Every conflict is less services to the public…it’s bulls**t. Sharon is right, ACHD should remain completely intact and the elected body should change to joint representation by elected official appointments from their member agencies. Nobody should get their panties in a bunch about whether it is “Team Dave” or any other local elected nutjob…these people change ALL the time so get past the drama/personalities and think about the logic of the underlying structure.

You wrote, “I seem to remember going to the polls and voting for my ACHD Commishes just like I voted for my Mayor and Councilors. Aren’t those decisions already in the hands of duly elected commissioners?” Unless you moved between elections, you did NOT vote for your ACHD Commishes, you voted for one of five. As for decisions being in the hands of duly elected commissioners? Well, technically, yes, but let’s take a little bit closer look:

When you DID get to cast that vote for ONE ACHD commissioner out of five, do you know who set it up to be that way? It wasn’t local voters, or even local elected officials, it was the Idaho legislature. Apparently, the Susan Eastlake/Gary Richardson commission was not pro-growth enough for some, so the legislature stepped in and changed both the number of ACHD commissioners, as well as the way we vote for them. Now, once every four years, we get one chance to vote for 20 percent of the ACHD Commission. In the case of my Commission district, there were four people vying for the seat last November, and Sherry Huber won with a whopping 36.63 percent of the vote. That’s hardly a mandate from the people.

Do you think that an incumbent unpopular enough to draw three challengers, and who receives less than 37 percent of the vote, is adequate? If so, then you are rather easily satisfied. I have higher standards. In the case of the other ACHD race last November, John Franden at least received more than 50 percent of the vote, but just barely. In a two-way race, Franden got 9613 votes to Jim Neill’s 9516.

I’ve got to agree with you about the track records of Boise and Eagle, but that doesn’t mean we should accept the ACHD status quo without first having an open-minded examination of possible alternatives.