CEO Michael Ford listens to public commentary at the Aug. 21 meeting of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority board. (Photos by the writer.)

Two items on the board’s voting agenda related at least indirectly to the leadership transition that the AAATA will be making. First, the board approved a resolution authorizing board chair Charles Griffith to appoint an ad hoc subcommittee to conduct a search for Ford’s replacement. The resolution approved by the board at its Aug. 21 meeting also authorized $50,000 for consulting services to help with the search.

Griffith said he has asked board members Anya Dale, Gillian Ream Gainsley and Eric Mahler to serve with him on the search committee, citing a desire to have a mix of board experience and geographic diversity represented on that group.

Second, the board approved the AAATA’s FY 2015 work plan, which will provide the basis for the FY 2015 budget. The budget will appear on the board’s Sept. 25 agenda for approval. The AAATA’s fiscal year runs from October through September. At the Aug. 21 meeting, Sue Gott credited Ford with developing the work plan, saying it would be valuable as a blueprint for the transition in leadership.

A major decision on the choice of bus technology might be made after Ford departs the AAATA in mid-October. Although the board approved a 5-year bus procurement contract with Gillig, and authorized an order for the first 27 of up to 60 buses called for in the 5-year contract, the board left the choice of drive-train technology open – between hybrid electric technology and clean diesel. The upfront capital cost difference is $200,000 per bus more for the hybrid technology. That final choice of technology will need to be made by the November board meeting.

Also at its Aug. 21 meeting, the board amended its pension plan to recognize same-sex marriages, which stemmed from a Supreme Court decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and the IRS ruling that resulted from that decision.

The board chose to delay approval of new service standards, which are a required element of AAATA’s Title VI compliance. The board can meet the Federal Transit Administration deadlines for submission of its Title VI materials if it approves the new service standards at its September board meeting.

Board members also received an update on the progress being made in a Michigan Dept. of Transportation environmental assessment of a project that could implement active traffic management (ATM) of the US-23 corridor. The project includes the idea of allowing vehicles to use the median shoulder during peak demand periods. The MDOT presentation included a visit from former AAATA board member Paul Ajegba, who is region engineer for MDOT’s University Region – a 10-county area that includes Livingston and Washtenaw counties. If The Chronicle publishes coverage of that presentation, it will be in a separate report.

The Aug. 21 meeting was held in the boardroom at the AAATA headquarters on South Industrial, instead of the usual location, which is the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library. The downtown library on South Fifth Avenue was closed in connection with the repair of its public elevator.

Transition

Much of the meeting reflected the theme of transition, as it had been known for several weeks that Ford was likely to take the job that had been offered to him by the southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority. Ford will depart the AAATA in mid-October to take the post as the first CEO of the RTA. Ford formally tendered his resignation on Aug. 21, 2014.

Ford was picked for the job as CEO of the RTA three months ago, on May 21, 2014. The RTA board approved Ford’s contract on Aug. 20, 2014. Ford’s announcement as a finalist and his selection for the RTA job came amid the AAATA’s successful campaign for a new millage to fund additional transportation services in the geographic area of the member jurisdictions of the AAATA – the city of Ann Arbor, the city of Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township. That millage was approved by voters on May 6, 2014.

The AAATA board had awarded Ford a raise at its June 10, 2014 meeting, based on a performance evaluation completed at its May 15, 2014 meeting, which came 11 days after the successful May 6 transit millage vote.

The RTA was established by the state legislature in late 2012, and includes Detroit and the four-county region of Washtenaw, Wayne, Macomb and Oakland.

Ford was hired by the AAATA in 2009.

Transition: Aug. 21 Opening Remarks

Board chair Charles Griffith led off the meeting with the “communications and announcements” agenda item asking, “Does anybody have anything to say?” Michael Ford’s response was “I do!” That drew some laughs from around the board table.

Ford stated: “It’s probably no secret by now, it’s kind of the moment everybody has been waiting for – I am going to be accepting a position with the RTA as the CEO there… I appreciated my time here. We have done a lot. And I’m really honored and privileged to be, and to have been the CEO here. It’s been a big deal to me. We have done a lot in the community. I want to thank my board – you guys have been tremendous, helping guide us and get us where we are. … I would also like to thank the staff, my senior staff and others, the operators, the facility folks, the mechanics who make everything go every single day, a very important part of this organization and the face of this organization.”

Ford singled out administrative assistant Karen Wheeler for special thanks, calling her “the glue, my rock.” Ford’s remarks elicited applause from the board and staff.

Griffith responded to Ford’s remarks by telling him, “We are going to miss you terribly. We didn’t want you to go but if you were to go anywhere, the RTA was our top pick. So you’ll still be working with us.” Ford replied to Griffith by saying that he would not forget where he came from.

Griffith told Ford that the board would have a couple of months to get some more work out of him related to the transition.

Transition: Public Commentary

During public commentary time at the start of the meeting, Thomas Partridge introduced himself as an advocate for all of those riders who need the representation of a strong CEO and strong leadership of the AAATA administration in order to ameliorate longstanding policies that are adverse to providing the best possible service to seniors and disabled persons. He was there to compliment CEO Michael Ford and the work that Ford had done to achieve greater recognition for seniors and disabled persons, but Partridge stated that there was much work left to be done. So he was calling on the board to redouble its efforts during the interim – to provide the leadership necessary to remove problems associated with the use of the system by seniors and disabled persons – whether it is using the A-Ride paratransit system, the Good as Gold system for seniors, or simply riding the buses.

Transition: LAC

Cheryl Webber gave the report from the local advisory council (LAC) for Rebecca Burke, who’d sent along her regrets that she was unable to attend the meeting. LAC is a body that advises the AAATA on issues related to the disability community as well as seniors. Webber thanked Michael Ford for his service and his ability to empower the AAATA staff to go forward with the visions that are going to build the agency’s future.

Transition: AAATA Search Committee

The board considered a resolution authorizing board chair Charles Griffith to appoint an ad hoc subcommittee to conduct a search for a replacement for outgoing CEO Michael Ford.

The resolution considered by the board at its Aug. 21 meeting also approved $50,000 for consulting services to help with the search.

When the board reached the voting item on the agenda, Charles Griffith noted that the item had been recommended by the AAATA’s governance committee. He allowed that the board had been aware for quite some time of the possibility that Ford would be taking the new position with the RTA. So the resolution would allow him to establish a search committee.

Griffith said the governance committee thinks it’s a good idea to hire a search firm to assist, saying that it worked pretty well with the selection of Ford about five years ago. [The governance committee, under the AAATA bylaws, consists of the board chair, the CEO and the chairs of the other standing committees of the board. Roger Kerson is chair of the performance monitoring and external relations committee; and Sue Gott is chair of the planning and development committee.] Griffith said the board wanted to do this expeditiously, venturing it would probably take longer than the 60 days that Ford had left working for the AAATA.

Gott thanked Griffith as chair for the amount of time that he put in to position the AAATA to make the transition. Susan Baskett asked if there was an estimated timeframe or desired timeframe for making an offer saying, “We’ve got to shoot for something.”

Griffith ventured that the search firm would help the AAATA figure that out. He said the board had taken more time with Ford’s selection than it had actually been comfortable with. That’s why they wanted to address this in as expedited a way as possible. The search firm needed to be brought on board in order to come up with a realistic timeframe. He hoped that it would not take longer than three months, but he was not yet confident that’s the answer that the board would get from the search firm.

Baskett asked if the specifications for a search firm had been prepared by the search committee. Griffith understood the question to be about the composition of the search committee – and said he was prepared to appoint members to the committee. He said he was looking for a balance of experience on the board and geographic diversity from the membership. Later in the meeting, Anya Dale, Eric Mahler and Gillian Ream Gainsley were named by Griffith as the other board members beside himself that he had asked to serve on the search committee.

When Baskett clarified her question, Griffith noted that the Federal Transit Administration had strict guidelines, and one of the first jobs that the committee would have with the search firm that’s selected would be to come up with the criteria for the new CEO. But he was not sure that there had been any specific criteria applied to the RFP (request for proposals) for the search firm – except that the firm needed to have experience with transit and experience specifically with executive management.

There had been a list with 17 different firms that the AAATA had use the last time it conducted this process, Griffith said. His recollection was that five or six bids come back from that RFP. The AAATA was pretty happy with the firm that it eventually selected.

Roger Kerson ventured that it’s important that the process be expeditious, but getting it right was also very important. It’s not something the board wanted to do every year, he quipped. He wanted the process to be speedy but also deliberate.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to authorize the board chair to form a search committee and hire a search firm.

Transition: FY 2015 Work Plan

Appearing on the board’s Aug. 21 agenda was approval of the 2015 work plan. [2015 AAATA work plan]

Highlights of new items include measurements of service performance – an initiative that comes in the context of additional transportation services to be offered starting Aug. 24. Those services will be funded with proceeds from a new millage that voters approved on May 6, 2014.

Another highlight is the construction of a walkway across the block between Fourth Avenue and Fifth Avenue – on the north side of the parcel where the new Blake Transit Center has been constructed. The reorientation of the new transit center to the south side of the parcel makes it possible to contemplate the walkway along the north side, which abuts the Federal Building. According to CEO Michael Ford’s regular written report to the board for August, he has made a funding request from the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority to pay for construction of the pedestrian walkway.

When the board reached the item on its voting agenda, Ford noted that the green-highlighted text reflected changes from the previous year’s work plan. He ventured that the plan had been dealt with fairly thoroughly. He told the board he could answer any questions, noting that the FY 2015 budget would need to support the work plan. [The FY 2015 budget will appear on the board's September agenda. The AAATA's fiscal year runs from October through September.]

Sue Gott asked Ford to give a one-minute set of highlights from the work plan. Putting the new service on the street now and for the rest of the year was really important, Ford replied. In connection with the board’s discussion about the choice of drive-train technology – clean diesel or hybrid electric – Ford noted that the work plan includes an item that would have the AAATA develop an environment policy. The AAATA had just constructed a new LEED-compliant transit center and has hybrids in its fleet, but did not have an overall environmental strategy, so the work plan was meant to address that.

Ford also highlighted in the work plan a possible redesign of the Ypsilanti Transit Center to increase lobby space and improve the bathrooms. Space needs were another highlight for the AAATA’s work plan. Ford noted that the AAATA was hiring additional drivers, and would need to have space for them. Some runs might need to be started out of Ypsilanti in the near future, he ventured.

Service performance standards were another item in the work plan highlighted by Ford. Following the work plan had been a good guide for the AAATA, Ford ventured. He credited the board and board member Sue Gott for helping the AAATA achieve the work plan.

Gott said she wanted to credit Ford with the work plan, and the reason she wanted to highlight it was this: Despite the transition in leadership, Ford was leaving the board with a very solid blueprint. The work plan was tremendous work that Ford and the staff had created, Gott said. It would be key to helping the board have a smooth transition.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to approve the FY 2015 work plan.

Transition: Board Officers

Board chair Charles Griffith also noted that under the AAATA board bylaws, board officers needed to be voted on at the September board meeting. He indicated that he would be asking some board member or possibly board members to act as the nominating committee for board officers for this year. He invited board members to contact him if they had any interest in doing that. The other two current officers are: Eli Cooper (treasurer); and Anya Dale (secretary). Roger Kerson is chair of the performance monitoring and external relations committee; and Sue Gott is chair of the planning and development committee.

The AAATA’s typical pattern is to elect the same chair for at least two years and then rotate to a different board member. Griffith is winding up his second year as chair.

Bus Procurement

On the board’s agenda were two items related to procurement of up to 60 new buses – a 5-year contract for purchase of the buses from Gillig LLC, and an order for the first 27 buses. The total cost of each bus will be between $444,000 and $662,500, depending on the length, drive system and options. That puts the total value of the contract with Gillig at a figure between $26.6 million and $39.7 million.

Of the 60 buses, 20 would be new, additional buses that are needed for the expansion of services the AAATA is offering as of Aug. 24. Those services will be funded with proceeds from a new millage authorized by voters on May 6, 2014. The other buses will replace existing buses that are nearing the end of their useful life.

The large spread between the minimum and maximum cost per bus is due to the incremental price difference between a hybrid electric drive system and a conventional clean diesel drive, which is nearly $200,000. According to the minutes of the Aug. 12, 2014 meeting of the AAATA’s planning and development committee, the extra cost of a hybrid bus over the life of the bus is $138,604. That figure includes cost comparison data relating to the upfront capital and fuel costs of both technologies.

Of the AAATA’s existing 80 buses, 52 use hybrid technology. The ongoing debate among AAATA board members on the choice of technology is based in part on the AAATA’s own experience with hybrid buses. The 5-year warranty has expired on the AAATA’s oldest hybrids, which has required a contingency budget for their future repairs. And manufacturers have now shortened their warranty periods for new hybrid buses from five to two years. That shorter warranty period will translate into greater costs to the AAATA for repairs.

According to AAATA staff cited in the PDC meeting minutes, the hybrid buses’ lower emission levels are a benefit of hybrid technology. However, the Environmental Protection Agency’s ongoing emission reduction standards now ensure that all new transit buses – whether hybrid or conventional – have very low emissions. On average, hybrid buses run at a noise level of 72 dB(A) compared to 75 dB(A) for conventional buses.

So the AAATA board has not yet made a final decision on the choice between hybrid technology and conventional clean diesel. The order for the first 27 buses from Gillig – which was also given approval at the board’s Aug. 21 meeting – leaves open the decision on the choice of technology. Of the 27 that are being ordered, 14 are replacement buses and 13 are buses needed for the service expansion.

The board would need to act by November 2014 on choosing the technology for the bus order. The choice to order hybrid technology could be based on the identification of grants that might pay for the cost differential of that technology. Delivery of the buses is planned for October 2015.

Here’s how the bus acquisition schedule breaks down:

              OCT   FEB   JAN   JAN   OCT  
Purpose      2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  TOT
============================================== 
Rplcmt buses
(now elig)     4                             4                          
Rplcmt buses 
(elig 11/15)  10           5     4          19
Rplcmt buses
(elig 11/19)                           15   15 
5YTIP Svc Exp 
(8/2015)       4                             4
5YTIP Svc Exp        
(6/2016)             9                       9
5YTIP Svc Exp  
(8/2017)                   7                 7 
==============================================
TOTAL                                       58

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Bus Procurement: Aug. 21 Meeting Discussion

During public commentary at the start of the meeting, Jim Mogensen told the board he supported the staff analysis of the technology choice for the new buses – which was clean diesel.

Gillian Ream Gainsley gave the report from the planning and development committee. She described the meeting as “inspired.” The committee had discussed the clean diesel versus hybrid technology for the drivetrains for the new buses that are being ordered. She noted that of the 27 buses, 14 were replacing conventional diesel buses and the other 13 buses would be for the service expansion.

The committee had received a presentation from staff, she said. One thing the committee had learned was that the new lower-emission diesel buses are quite different from the conventional diesel buses that are currently in the AAATA’s fleet. Emissions are a lot lower than they used to be, and the noise levels are lower than they used to be, but they’re a bit higher than hybrid technology. The up-front purchase cost is roughly $200,000 greater, she noted, and that cost differential is not made up over the life of the bus in fuel savings. So the committee had a lengthy discussion about the pros and cons of those different options. She said the AAATA want to be environmentally responsible but they also want to be fiscally responsible.

The committee had asked staff in that discussion to come up with some projections about combinations of buses, possibly keeping a ratio of hybrid to conventional buses that is consistent with the ratio in the current fleet, Ream Gainsley said. The committee had put off a decision on technology, but she noted that the buses needed to be ordered. So the committee had approved an order to purchase buses, but had put off a decision on exactly what combination of hybrid and clean diesels.

There had been some discussion also about the bus procurement contract, Ream Gainsley said. The AAATA was limited by the fact that there are not many vendors in Michigan, so there was only one bid. She noted that there were two companies that were interested and one ended up declining to bid on the contract. As much as the AAATA would love to have more than one bid, when there are only two companies in the state that offer the product, that makes it difficult. So on that basis, the committee had recommended the procurement contract with Gillig.

In his report from the performance monitoring and external relations committee, Roger Kerson said his take-away from the discussion of the bus technology was that the gap between performance for the clean diesel and the hybrid technology had diminished over the last few years. He identified as an issue the fact that other agencies are not buying many hybrids, so hybrids are not as prevalent in the industry – and that makes it harder to keep the hybrids in good repair.

CEO Michael Ford distributed a handout to board members on the topic of clean diesel and hybrid drivetrains. In the foreground is board member Susan Baskett.

Kerson noted that AAATA manager of maintenance Terry Black was focused on those maintenance issues, saying the AAATA needs to have service available out of every bus, every hour, every day, and every month. His understanding of the resolution was that it approved the purchase of the buses – and then in December a decision on the drivetrain would be provided to Gillig. That meant that the decision would need to be made by the board in November, he thought. The board did not want to be in a situation where Gillig was waiting for the AAATA board’s December meeting to take place in order to start manufacturing the buses.

So Kerson wanted the board to focus its efforts. As board members they need to focus on the question: What do we still need to know to make this decision? And how can we get these requests in a timely manner to the staff so that the board is not sitting there in October and November and wondering what kind of factors need to be weighed.

During question time, CEO Michael Ford allowed that there had been a lot of discussion about hybrids versus conventional buses. He wanted any other questions or concerns addressed – and he hoped to have any additional feedback from the board by Aug. 31 so that the staff could work on getting those questions answered. He provided board members with a handout of the steps that the staff were working on so that board members’ memories might be jogged for other considerations that board members want staff consider.

Bus Procurement: Five-Year Contract – Board Deliberations

When the board reached the voting item on its agenda, board chair Charles Griffith reviewed how this item was a contract for a five-year plan to acquire additional buses. It was separate from the following resolution that was an actual bus order. He allowed there been some concern about the lack of other bidders, but noted that the AAATA was limited by the number of providers. Gillian Ream Gainsley said she appreciated Michelle Barney’s comment during public commentary about the need for Sunday service and feeder routes.

She said that those routes would eventually be reconfigured, and everyone was eager to see those things happen. The challenge is that the AAATA is limited by how fast buses can be manufactured. This resolution addresses that, she said. It’s a huge contract, and it’s the largest purchase that the agency makes, she noted. She appreciated the fact that staff was ready to get moving on it very quickly after the millage had passed. The board had been asking for a lot of information, because it’s a really big decision. So she appreciated the staff effort to move the process forward as fast as possible, so that the new service can get moving.

Outcome: The board unanimously approved the bus procurement contract with Gillig.

Bus Procurement: 27 Buses – Board Deliberations

When the board reached the voting item on the agenda, Charles Griffith noted that the order would be for 27 buses – part of them replacement buses and part of them expansion buses. Griffith allowed that there’d been quite a bit of discussion about which kind of technology to use for the drivetrain. Staff would be doing some additional analysis to help the board with that decision. He felt that the board was committed to making that decision in a timely fashion.

CEO Michael Ford commented that the decision would need to be made by the board’s November meeting.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to approve the bus order for 27 buses.

Same-Sex Pension Benefits

The board considered an amendment to the pension plan of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority – to recognize same-sex marriages and for the terms “spouse,” “husband and wife,” “husband” and “wife” to include a same-sex spouse.

The amendment was to bring the AAATA’s pension policy into compliance with Internal Revenue Service Ruling 2013-17 and IRS Notice 2014-19. Those IRS rulings give guidance on how to implement the U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor, which declared Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 to be unconstitutional.

Reporting out from the performance monitoring and external relations committee, Roger Kerson described the same-sex pension benefit item as stemming from the fact that the Supreme Court had overthrown the Defense of Marriage Act. Based on that, the Internal Revenue Service had issued a ruling saying that pension plans must recognize any legal same-sex marriage. That meant that the AAATA needed to “true up” its pension plan – otherwise people’s pension contributions would no longer be tax-deductible. And that would be very bad news for everybody in the plan, he said. He was very supportive of the idea that the AAATA would recognize marriage of any employee who had a legal same-sex marriage. He called it pretty much a “no-brainer.”

When the board reached the voting item on its agenda, board chair Charles Griffith echoed Kerson’s sentiment that it was a no-brainer.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to adopt the pension plan amendment.

Title VI Service Standards

The board considered adoption of new service standards as part of the AAATA’s compliance with Title VI. The civil rights legislation – in the context of public transportation – requires, among other things, proof that a service change has no adverse effect on disadvantaged populations. [.pdf of AAATA Title VI Service Standards]

The AAATA’s standards include items like a once-per-hour minimum frequency of fixed-route service and 90% of trips completed within 5 minutes of the scheduled time. Policies include items like bus shelters at bus stops with 50 or more boardings per day where there is no other shelter available and where a shelter is physically and legally feasible.

The required types of standards include:

• Headway or frequency by mode. That is, either bus every x minutes or x buses/hour. There can be a minimum standard or different standards by time of day (peak vs. off-peak) or day of week.
• On-time performance by mode. Can be either for each trip (i.e. at route endpoint), or for each timepoint along the route.
• Service availability by mode. Can be either percent of population within a certain distance of service or maximum stop spacing. Can have different standards based on differences in population density.
• Vehicle load. Expressed as ratio of riders to seats. Can vary by time of day (peak vs. offpeak) or day of week.

Required service policies include those on:

• Distribution of bus stop amenities
  • Benches
  • Shelters
  • Customer information (printed and electronic)
  • Escalators/Elevators
  • Waste receptacles
• Vehicle assignment
  • Age
  • Type (e.g. hybrid)
  • Can be by mode

Title VI Service Standards: Public Comment

During public commentary at the start of the meeting, Jim Mogensen told the board that when he was preparing his remarks that evening he was initially planning to address the bus procurement item – and he was planning to speak in favor of the staff analysis, which recommended clean diesel instead of hybrid technology. But with the addition of the Title VI issue, he felt that he needed to use his three minutes to speak on that particular issue. He did not believe that the standards were yet ready for adoption. He thought it was important for the board to keep in mind a couple of things.

First was the fact that the AAATA has been classified as a very large organization – and is therefore required to do a much more extensive analysis than a regular fixed-route provider on the Federal Transit Administration list. The AAATA was grouped with Flint, CATA and SMART, he said.

Mogensen’s second point was that when service changes are implemented, it assumes that everything is ok right now, which might not be the case. As an example, one of the standards is the headway (time between buses). The AAATA’s standard says that there will be a minimum headway of 60 minutes, he noted. But for a very long time that has been the minimum headway, he noted – for all of the bus routes. That doesn’t address the issue of differences between minority routes and non-minority routes with respect to that standard. Mogensen felt that those issues had not quite been addressed. He knew that the purchase of service agreement (POSA) had just recently been put in place for Superior Township, and he had not had a chance to examine that agreement. But from his point of view, AAATA’s service as a whole is all of the fixed-route service.

Mogensen did not believe that the board should approve the service standards that evening. He told the board they should wait until the next meeting in September – and he told them that he would try to do a more formal analysis before that meeting. He encouraged the board to ask staff about the need to have much more formal data collection.

Michelle Barney introduced herself as a member of Partners for Transit. She had done an awful lot of bus riding and talking to people about the transit millage earlier in the year – mostly in Ypsilanti. She’d also done some phone banking, she told the board. She wanted to talk to the board about how equity issues are seen by people on the street. She talked about racial justice on the north side and the south side of Ypsilanti. When she had talked to several members of the board on the phone in the last couple of weeks, they told her that the AAATA has to give more service to Ypsilanti Township – because the township is a new member of the AAATA. Further, Ypsilanti Township and the city of Ann Arbor were paying more money for the buses, she’d heard board members say, so Ypsilanti Township and the city of Ann Arbor are demanding more service – because they are paying more money for the buses.

But Barney noted that those jurisdictions are paying more money because their property values are higher. They do not pay a greater percent – pointing out that everyone pays the same percent under the AAATA’s new millage, which is 0.7 mills. The city of Ypsilanti is entitled to the same level of service, she said. The issue of Title VI and whether the AAATA will get money from the federal government is very important. She said she hated to use the word but she had decided to do it and that word was “Ferguson.” What does Ferguson have to do with it? she asked rhetorically. It is not a threat, she stated, but Ferguson has woken up the country to the fact that prejudiced behavior doesn’t just happen in New York, in Harlem – it also happens in the heartland of America. People are waking up, she said. Barney also commented on the new Route 46, indicating that the AAATA needed to have routes that fed people to the downtown where that route departed, otherwise that new route was useless.

Title VI Service Standards: Board Discussion

Roger Kerson quipped that the performance monitoring and external relations committee had also had an “inspired” meeting just like the planning and development committee – because he was the only board member in attendance. Reporting out from that committee, Kerson said that in examining the Title VI standards – perhaps because he’d met as a committee of one – he did not have the wisdom of his colleagues to which he could appeal. So he hadn’t considered some of the concerns that Jim Mogensen had raised during his public commentary.

Kerson ventured that those issues needed to be examined to determine whether the resolution was ripe for consideration or whether it perhaps needed another look. What Kerson had focused on was the question of whether it would change anything that the AAATA is doing now. And what he heard from staff was that they would be looking at things like maximum loads more closely. Based on the information the board had heard during public commentary, they might want to decide to delay, he said: “Let’s have more than just me think about it,” he said.

Board members engaged in a 20-minute back-and-forth on the topic and eventually concluded that they should postpone consideration until the next meeting in September. AAATA manager service development Chris White indicated that there was room in the timeline for the board to delay action until its next board meeting – but after that, paperwork was due to the FTA on Oct. 1, 2014.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to postpone consideration of the Title VI service standards until its September meeting.

Title VI Service Standards: More Public Commentary

During public commentary time at the end of the meeting, Jim Mogensen thanked the board for delaying their vote on the service centers. He said he would do his best to provide as much input as he could under the deadlines. He noted that the regulations say that once you adopt standards for the three-year plan, you are not allowed to change them during those three years. He also mentioned that before he became disabled, in his professional life he did regulatory analysis in Washington DC for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the EPA, and for the Small Business Administration. So he had some understanding of how some of these things operate, he said, and he would try to help.

Mogensen has had an ongoing concern about the issue of AAATA’s commuter service versus mobility service in the middle of the day. When you look at the loading factors, most of that occurs during the commuter service and you can envision a situation where there is a very high peak time service and a much lower service in the middle of the day. And that causes difficulties for those like Mogensen, who primarily use the AAATA to get around during the day. Even though it makes sense why the AAATA would be doing that, there are some important issues related to how that dynamic plays out.

Also during public commentary time at the end of the meeting, Michelle Barney told the board that she not been there in a while because she’d had some health issues, but she told the board that she would now be there more often. Title VI was very complicated, she allowed. She had tried reading it and she tried printing it off the web, but she didn’t have enough money because it costs $.10 a page to print. But she had made requests of the area’s Washington DC legislators and of the NAACP in trying to reach a local ACLU attorney – to find out if there’s anything published that is a valid summary of Title VI. She wanted something she could read, maybe 30 pages instead of 130.

Title VI Service Standards: On-Time Performance

One of the Title VI service standards is on-time performance – which the AAATA establishes at 90% of trips being completed within five minutes of the scheduled time. During his report to the board, Michael Ford noted that on-time performance was currently suffering due to the widespread construction that’s being undertaken on various roads and streets in the area. AAATA is spending about $6,000 a week primarily on trying to back-fill to keep buses on schedule, he said.

Half of the $6,000 is being spent on the Pontiac Trail route. The other half of the $6,000 has gone into supporting Packard, Carpenter, Jackson Avenue and Ann Arbor-Saline Road. The AAATA was doing its best to keep this service on time, but was encountering some problems with that, he allowed. With the University of Michigan’s student move-in week coming up, traffic would increase and that would exacerbate the problem, he ventured.

Communications, Committees, CEO, Commentary

At its Aug. 21 meeting, the board entertained various communications, including its usual reports from the performance monitoring and external relations committee, the planning and development committee, as well as from CEO Michael Ford. The board also heard commentary from the public. In addition to the communications and commentary reported earlier in this article, here are some highlights.

Comm/Comm: Access, Website

During public commentary time at the start of the meeting, after making complimentary remarks about Michael Ford’s efforts to give greater recognition to seniors and those with disabilities, Thomas Partridge said there was more work that needed to be done. He called on the board to adopt new priorities to put the most vulnerable riders first, and remove discriminatory practices of the current system, including the contract with the SelectRide company. No one should call a cab in the A-Ride system and have a vehicle appear that has 450,000 miles on it, Partridge said. It’s not good practice to provide people rides in vehicles with that kind of high mileage, he said. There are also vehicles that are not kept in good repair, he contended.

During his report from the performance monitoring and external relations committee, Roger Kerson noted that more of the AAATA’s website work was being taken in-house with the hire of someone to handle that work. [At the board's August meeting, it was announced that Preston Stewart had been hired for the position.] The board needs to continue to address the concerns of accessibility of the website, he said.

Reporting out from the local advisory council, Cheryl Webber said the longest discussion at the LAC meeting was about the AAATA website. They’d discussed the accessibility and user-friendliness to people who look there for information. She had not really thought about it before then, but her experiences were that the website was not useful enough to her to consult it. “And that’s really sad,” she said, because a lot of work went into it. It looked pretty, she allowed, but she found herself going to Google maps and choosing the bus routing option for directions from point A to point B. She said she was looking forward to improvements being made to the website.

During public commentary time at the end of the meeting, Partridge said it was important that throughout all of the proceedings of the AAATA, priority should be given to concerns of the most vulnerable ridership – which includes not only low-income ridership but also ridership that is handicapped or that has senior citizen status. Related to the selection process for the CEO, Partridge said it was very important that Ford leave the AAATA with a CEO selection process underway with criteria that would give emphasis to candidates that have quality experience with senior ride and handicapped ride programs.

Comm/Comm: Police on Buses

During public commentary time at the end of the meeting, Jim Mogensen responded to a comment in Michael Ford’s written report that mentioned a meeting he’d had with state representative David Rutledge and Washtenaw County sheriff Jerry Clayton in the context of the Eastern Washtenaw Safety Alliance. One of the potential suggestions was to have police officers or members of law enforcement ride the buses. Mogensen thought the AAATA board needed to give careful consideration to how that might be implemented and how that might be seen in terms of surveillance – as another way of going undercover to find out what’s going on in neighborhoods and monitoring people’s behavior.

Comm/Comm: Financial Reports

With respect to the financial reports that the performance monitoring and external relations committee had heard, Roger Kerson said that AAATA had received the first cut of the new millage money – which was about $4.5 million.

From left: AAATA board members Eric Mahler and Larry Krieg.

Of that, $3.8 million had been programmed for activities in the next year, including some capital expenditures and things that need to be done to get up and running. There is a $600,000 surplus in the budget, he said. As he understood it, that money is going to be used for service in the “out years.”

During question time, Larry Krieg said that in reading the budget reports, he was a little bit concerned about how much money was being saved by having people out on disability. He wondered if there was any particular reason why the AAATA had more people out on disability than usual.

AAATA head of human resources Ed Robertson told Krieg that the AAATA would prefer to have no people out on disability and currently he thought there were two. He thought there had been more people out on disability during the winter.

Comm/Comm: New Service

During communications time, Michael Ford noted that the new extended services to be provided by the AAATA – funded by the millage approved by voters on May 6, 2014 – would start the following Sunday, Aug. 24. He also noted that there would be a celebration held at the Ypsilanti Transit Center on August 25. It would include a media tour of Route 46 followed by a press conference at the Ypsilanti Transit Center, to be hosted by Partners for Transit, he said.

Comm/Comm: Response to Suggestions

Ford noted that the AAATA had responded to suggestions made at the previous month’s board meeting – to make information about the Aug. 24 service changes easier to find on the AAATA’s website – by placing a prominent link on the homepage. The board had also heard a suggestion to make clear to passengers how they can make compliments. That would be included in the RideGuide as well as on the website, Ford reported.

Present: Charles Griffith, Eric Mahler, Susan Baskett, Sue Gott, Roger Kerson, Anya Dale, Gillian Ream Gainsley, Larry Krieg.

Absent: Eli Cooper, Jack Bernard.

Next regular meeting: Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014 at 6:30 p.m. at the Ann Arbor District Library, 343 S. Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor [Check Chronicle event listings to confirm date]

Highlights of new items include measurements of service performance – an initiative that comes in the context of additional transportation services to be offered starting Aug. 24. Those services will be funded with proceeds from a new millage that voters approved on May 6, 2014.

Another highlight is the construction of a walkway across the block between Fourth Avenue and Fifth Avenue on the north side of the parcel where the new Blake Transit Center has been constructed. The re-orientation of the new transit center to the south side of the parcel makes it possible to contemplate the walkway along the north side, which abuts the Federal Building. According to CEO Michael Ford’s regular written report to the board for August, he has made a funding request from the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority to fund the construction of the pedestrian walkway.

This brief was filed from the AAATA headquarters building at 2700 S. Industrial Highway, where the board held its Aug. 21 meeting – due to the closure of its regular meeting location at the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library. The library building was closed to due to the repair of the public elevator.

Of the 60 buses, 20 would be new, additional buses that are needed for the expansion of services the AAATA will be offering starting Aug. 24. Those services will be funded with proceeds from a new millage authorized by voters on May 6, 2014. The other buses will replace existing buses that are nearing the end of their useful life.

The large spread between the minimum and maximum cost per bus is due to the incremental price difference between a hybrid electric drive system and a conventional clean diesel drive, which is nearly $200,000. According to the minutes of the Aug. 12, 2014 meeting of the AAATA’s planning and development committee, the extra cost of a hybrid bus over the life of the bus is $138,604. That figure includes cost comparison data relating to the upfront capital and fuel costs of both technologies.

Of the AAATA’s existing 80 buses, 52 use hybrid technology. The ongoing debate among AAATA board members on choice of technology is based in part on the AAATA’s own experience with hybrid buses. The 5-year warranty has expired on the AAATA’s oldest hybrids, which has required a contingency budget for their future repairs. And manufacturers have now shortened their warranty periods for new hybrid buses from five to two years. That shorter warranty period will translate into greater costs to the AAATA for repairs.

According to AAATA staff cited in the PDC meeting minutes, the hybrid buses’ lower emission levels are a benefit of hybrid technology. However, the Environmental Protection Agency’s ongoing emission reduction standards now ensure that all new transit buses – whether hybrid or conventional – have very low emissions. On average, hybrid buses run at a noise level of 72 dB(A) compared to 75 dB(A) for conventional buses.

So the AAATA board has not yet made a final decision on the choice between hybrid technology and conventional clean diesel. The order for the first 27 buses from Gillig – which was also given approval at the board’s Aug. 21 meeting – leaves open the decision on the choice of technology.  Of the 27 that are being ordered, 14 are replacement buses and 13 are buses needed for the service expansion.

The board would need to act by November 2014 on choosing the technology for the bus order. The choice to order hybrid technology could be based on the identification of grants that might pay for the cost differential of that technology. Delivery of the buses is planned for October 2015.

Here’s how the bus acquisition schedule breaks down:

              OCT   FEB   JAN   JAN   OCT  
Purpose      2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  TOT
============================================== 
Rplcmt buses
(now elig)     4                             4                          
Rplcmt buses 
(elig 11/15)  10           5     4          19
Rplcmt buses
(elig 11/19)                           15   15 
5YTIP Svc Exp 
(8/2015)       4                             4
5YTIP Svc Exp        
(6/2016)             9                       9
5YTIP Svc Exp  
(8/2017)                   7                 7 
==============================================
TOTAL                                       58

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This brief was filed from the AAATA headquarters building, where the board held its Aug. 21, 2014 meeting – due to the closure of its regular meeting location at the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library. The library building was closed to due to the repair of the public elevator.

The context of the salary increase includes Ford’s selection as the new CEO for the southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority, but it’s not clear at this point whether Ford will take the job. At the June 10 meeting Ford said, “Right now, I’m still the CEO here…”

The increase for the period from October 2012 through September 2013 raised Ford’s base salary from $164,800 to $169,744. The 3% increase on that amount through the current fiscal year brings his salary to $174,836. The board’s June 10 action authorized a lump sum payment to cover the retroactive raises up to the present time, as well as a $20,000 payment into Ford’s 457 deferred compensation plan account, which reflects payments of $10,000 cash for the fiscal year 2013 and 2014. The lump sum retroactive salary adjustment works out to a little less than $11,900.

Before this most recent increase, Ford’s most recent previous revision to his compensation had come at the board’s Dec. 15, 2011 meeting, when his salary was increased by $4,800 to $164,800 annually. Ford’s contract also includes a car allowance that translates to roughly $10,000 a year. [.pdf of June 10, 2014 compensation letter][.pdf of Ford's contract]

This current raise was awarded to Ford based on a performance evaluation the board had completed at its May 15, 2014 board meeting, which came 11 days after a successful transit millage proposal on May 6, 2014. That performance evaluation also came in the context of Ford’s application for the CEO position with the southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority. The day after his evaluation, Ford was named as one of three finalists for the RTA job, and was subsequently made an offer of the job, which is still pending. The RTA was established by the state legislature in late 2012, and includes Detroit and the four-county region of Washtenaw, Wayne, Macomb and Oakland.

Commenting on his current status at the AAATA board’s June 10 meeting, Ford said: “Right now I am still the CEO here and I’m not having any other discussions at this point with the RTA and that’s my status. I’ll leave it at that.” Board chair Charles Griffith added that Ford has not ruled out the RTA job, saying that the AAATA board would obviously prefer that Ford stay at the AAATA. But if Ford chose to go elsewhere, the board would support that decision. Ford had also assured Griffith that the AAATA would be in good hands and would have a stable transition if Ford were to leave.

Ford’s evaluation was expressed in the form of a board resolution approved on May 15:

Whereas the AAATA board’s evaluation of CEO Michael Ford’s performance reflects his leadership, work ethic, and ability to motivate staff to work at a high level of public service during a challenging period of transitioning the AAATA;

Whereas Michael’s outreach to community leaders in Ann Arbor and surrounding communities has laid the foundation for the expansion of the authority to include Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township and for the newly expanded organization to do an improved job of providing high-quality transit services;

Whereas Michael has led the organization to a number of significant accomplishments during the previous and current fiscal years, including: continued growth in overall ridership; growth in the vanpool program; growth in AirRide ridership and a decrease in the cost of the service; a new collective bargaining agreement ratified by the members of the TW Local 171 and approved by our Board of Directors; launch of a new AAATA website with improved rider information, navigation and tools; construction of a new Blake Transit Center; development of a new five-year urban core transportation improvement plan and a successful millage proposal;

Therefore be it resolved that the AAATA Board of Directors recognizes Michael Ford’s performance and accomplishments and desires to continue his employment as CEO, and the board looks forward to working with Michael on a new contract to continue his employment and also working with him to improve transit services in our community. Our intent is to complete this contract the time of our next meeting.

This brief was filed from the Holiday Inn Express at 600 Briarwood Circle, where the board held its special meeting.

AAATA CEO Michael Ford spoke with Carolyn Grawi, Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living director for advocacy and education, after the May 15, 2014 meeting of the AAATA board.

The four-county area of the RTA includes the counties of Washtenaw, Wayne, Macomb and Oakland as well as the city of Detroit. It was established by the Michigan legislature in late 2012.

The RTA’s hiring of a CEO has been frustrated by a lack of state funding. John Hertel, general manager of SMART (Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation), was appointed CEO by the RTA board last year, but he eventually left the post in early 2014 because no funding was available for his salary.

Crain’s Detroit Business reported the Friday, May 16 vote by the RTA’s executive and policy committee to recommend Ford as well as two other finalists for the job.

The two other finalists are:

• Albert Martin, former director of the Detroit Dept. of Transportation and the Southeast Michigan Transportation Authority (the forerunner to SMART) bus systems, and a former deputy commissioner of the Connecticut Dept. of Transportation.
• Brian Marshall, a transit consultant and former CEO of the Capital Area Transit System in Baton Rouge, La., who also spent 20 years with the Chicago Transit Authority.

Crain’s reports that the three candidates will be interviewed by the whole RTA board starting at noon on Wednesday, May 21. The interviews will be open to the public and held at the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) office at 1001 Woodward in Detroit. Washtenaw County’s two representatives on the RTA board are Liz Gerber, a University of Michigan professor of public policy, and former state legislator Alma Wheeler Smith.

In 2016, the RTA will likely be asking voters in the four-county area for approval of a property tax or a vehicle registration fee to support regional transportation services.

Ford’s selection as a finalist comes a little over a week after voters in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township passed a new 0.7 mill tax for the AAATA with clear majority support.

His selection also comes the day after the AAATA board held a closed session to conduct his regular performance review, as part of the May 15 board meeting. The review should have been completed around the start of the fiscal year in October or November of 2013. Ford was invited into the closed session for roughly the final 20 minutes of the session. When the board emerged from its closed session, which lasted about an hour and ten minutes, AAATA board chair Charles Griffith apologized to Ford for the delay in conducting his performance evaluation.

After its closed session, the board also approved a resolution with a glowing performance evaluation of Ford, indicating that the board wanted Ford to continue as CEO and that it hoped to have a new contract in place by the board’s next regular monthly meeting.

Whereas the AAATA board’s evaluation of CEO Michael Ford’s performance reflects his leadership, work ethic, and ability to motivate staff to work at a high level of public service during a challenging period of transitioning the AAATA;

Whereas Michael’s outreach to community leaders in Ann Arbor and surrounding communities has laid the foundation for the expansion of the authority to include Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township and for the newly expanded organization to do an improved job of providing high-quality transit services;

Whereas Michael has led the organization to a number of significant accomplishments during the previous and current fiscal years, including: continued growth in overall ridership; growth in the vanpool program; growth in AirRide ridership and a decrease in the cost of the service; a new collective bargaining agreement ratified by the members of the TW Local 171 and approved by our Board of Directors; launch of a new AAATA website with improved rider information, navigation and tools; construction of a new Blake Transit Center; development of a new five-year urban core transportation improvement plan and a successful millage proposal;

Therefore be it resolved that the AAATA Board of Directors recognizes Michael Ford’s performance and accomplishments and desires to continue his employment as CEO, and the board looks forward to working with Michael on a new contract to continue his employment and also working with him to improve transit services in our community. Our intent is to complete this contract the time of our next meeting.

Reached by telephone on Friday afternoon, Ford told The Chronicle he’d just been notified of his selection as a finalist for the RTA job five minutes earlier. Responding to a question from The Chronicle, he said he’d apprised the board of his application for the RTA job and that was part of the closed session discussion. He stressed that he did not have the RTA job, that he enjoyed the work he was doing with the AAATA, and was very happy about what the AAATA had been able to accomplish. He noted that July 2014 will mark five years for him with the AAATA.

Before Ford was hired in 2009, one concern that some board members had was that his interview answers weren’t crisp. Asked by The Chronicle if he’d tried to become more “crisp” in the course of his time at the AAATA, Ford responded: “You have to be true to yourself,” adding that he felt there were times when being more direct was appropriate and that each situation needs to be navigated based on the particular setting.

Ford’s current contract with the AAATA calls for $160,000 in annual salary and a vehicle allowance that works out to just over $10,000 a year. [.pdf of Ford's employment contract] [Ford was awarded a raise subsequent to that contract at the board's Dec. 15, 2011 meeting, bringing his annual salary to $164,800.]

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Exactly one week before the vote, Ward 2 Ann Arbor city councilmembers Jane Lumm and Sally Petersen hosted a resident meeting on the topic.

This AAATA route map shows the current configuration of fixed-route buses. Label and icon for Earhart Village added by The Chronicle.

Invited were all residents of Ward 2, city residents at large, as well as representatives of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority. The AAATA board voted in February to place the millage on the May 6 ballot.

About 50 people attended. Among others, the meeting drew Ward 2 city council candidate Nancy Kaplan, former Ward 1 council candidate Jeff Hayner, former mayor Ingrid Sheldon, Ward 3 council candidate Julie Grand, and state rep Jeff Irwin (D-53).

This is a report of that meeting.

Lumm and Petersen had previously co-hosted a half dozen similar meetings for their constituents on a variety of topics. The April 29 event had a potentially broader impact: At a candidate forum held on April 16, 2014, mayoral hopeful Petersen had stated that she was planning to wait until after the April 29 ward meeting to decide on a possible endorsement of the millage.

At that time, Petersen was still a little bit on the fence – but leaning toward supporting it. By then, the three other candidates in the Democratic mayoral primary – Sabra Briere, Christopher Taylor and Stephen Kunselman – had already indicated support for the additional tax.

The April 29 evening meeting was held at Earhart Village – a 174-unit condominium community just off the north-south Earhart Road, between Plymouth and Geddes. The Route #2 bus line runs from downtown to the northeast up Plymouth – with a relatively infrequent variant, Route #2C, that offers service down from Plymouth to the Earhart Village area. Accessing Route #3 to the south, on Geddes, would mean about a 1-mile walk up Earhart for an Earhart Village resident.

Frequency of service to the Earhart Village area was among the complaints of some attendees. Many in the room were negatively inclined toward the millage, as one woman announced she’d already voted no, using an absentee ballot. But there were some voices in the room that backed the proposal. Responding to criticism that the AAATA was not a “lean-and-mean” organization, a teacher in the audience made a comparison to cuts by the school district: “Lean-and-mean is not serving our students.”

AAATA staff Chris White, Michael Benham, and Mary Stasiak gave a presentation to the group before fielding questions. Lumm and Petersen structured the interaction by reading questions that attendees had written on index cards, but people were also free to ask direct questions. Some questions were pointedly critical in tone: “Does the millage money cover the additional wear and tear on the roads due to the additional buses?” And some were softballs: “Do Ward 2 constituents understand the benefit of bus expansion for low-income people and people with disabilities?”

At the conclusion of the meeting, Petersen quipped: “We had loaded questions, we had loaded answers. Hopefully one way or another we’ll have loaded buses sometime soon!” And Petersen announced her support for the millage two days later at a May 1 morning meeting of the Main Street Area Association.

However loaded the questions might have been, they elicited some useful information about how public transportation works. This report is organized along three broad themes reflected in the questions and comments from residents: overall efficiency of the AAATA as an organization; the nature of transportation funding; and some basics of public transportation service. The report is supplemented with charts generated from a national transit database.

AAATA Efficiency

A number of questions from the audience – either written on cards and handed to Lumm and Petersen or asked directly – dealt with a perception that the AAATA is not operationally efficient.

AAATA Efficiency: Staffing

Question: If the millage passes, how many new jobs will be created in total at the AAATA, and how many of those will be new drivers? [Background to the question is a claim by opponents of the millage that the AAATA has 52 management staff.]

CHRIS WHITE: We expect over the five-year period about 60 new drivers. And there will be a couple of mechanics because we’ll have a larger fleet of buses. There might be a supervisor or two related to mechanics or facilities – but so far it looks like we can handle this with the staff we’ve got.

Question: Cutting administrative staff could offset increased costs – why isn’t that being pursued?

CHRIS WHITE: Right. That assumes that those administrative staff are not being productive and are not doing tasks that are worthwhile. That’s a judgment for the AAATA board to look at and see what our plans are and what we need to do to carry that out. Administrative staff includes our mechanics supervisors, the transportation supervisors, the people who are dispatching buses, the people investigating accidents, human resources, finance, IT, planning, the people who sell tickets, the people at the front desk, at the Blake Transit Center – it’s a wide range. Our judgment is that the staff that is there is needed in order to provide the level of service that we provide.

MICHAEL BENHAM: There are a number of folks at the office who were amazed to learn that they were “managers.” We have 11 managers. There are 52 non-union employees. That’s a big difference. There’s some messages out there that are a little bit misleading. Take our IT staff – they’re working on the overhead signs on the buses, they work to maintain those, they maintain the fare boxes. The system is very electronic these days. So our IT staff is part of those so-called “managers,” but without them we would not know where our buses are, we would not be able to provide messages to people as the bus arrives at the stop.

[Later in the meeting, Benham stressed the importance of IT staff in some of the shorter-term research and development initiatives.]

The other thing I think we should point out in terms of research and development, some of it is looking fairly far down the road. But some of it is looking at short-range issues. One of those is transit signal priority, where buses can communicate with the traffic signals and a little extra green time or gain a little extra time on that left turn – and that will speed up our operations quite a bit. With more traffic out there, we are concerned that our operations might slow down and we want to make sure that we can keep up with it.

Also, fare box technology is another big thing. Right now, if you ride our service, you see people get on the bus and people unroll their dollar bill and it takes a while at each stop. Obviously you want to collect those dollars, but it slows down our operation to do that. There are technologies out there that are being used by other systems, where you buy your ticket on your phone and you show it to your driver or you have a smart card that you don’t have to put into the farebox, you can just bring it close to the farebox. Those technologies are here, but it takes work to figure out how to apply these technologies in the system. But that’s going to speed up service. We’re looking long-term, but we’re also looking at very near-term possibilities.

Question: Does the AAATA conduct salary surveys and keep its salary levels commensurate with the corporate world?

CHRIS WHITE: We have a salary administration program that we’ve had in place for a number of years. It compares our administrative wages by position with similar positions in southeast Michigan. We benchmark those positions that are relatively simple to compare: Manager of human resources is pretty much the same at a transit agency as it is at a lot of other places … finance manager and that kind of thing. And so those are benchmarked. We keep our salaries in line with those in southeast Michigan.

AAATA Efficiency: Expenditures on Marketing, Campaign

Question:What about all the marketing staff and consultants on marketing?

MICHAEL BENHAM: As far as marketing, we have 50% more riders per service hour than our peers. In part that is because of our marketing. That’s because we offer innovative programs. We go to schools and we talk with kids early on to see if we can introduce them to transit and make them lifelong transit riders. We go to the University of Michigan and we offer options to them for getting to their workplace without bringing their car into Ann Arbor. We go to companies and talk to them about how they can get downtown without bringing their car into the downtown, and on and on.

You know, transit is not necessarily something that people know about or think about. Some people do, but we need to work hard to get people onto the system. We have a big chunk of ridership that we call “transit dependent” – they don’t have cars and they don’t have any other choice. But the big and growing part of our system is what we call “choice riders.” Those are people who have a car, or maybe have one car at home and there are two wage earners. But they have a choice whether to take that bus to work, or to the theater, or what have you. Maybe they do it to save money – which they do – or maybe because they are environmentally conscious. So the marketing we do – we call it outreach – it is our way of talking to the community and getting people interested in the service and getting people onto the bus and making that productivity 50% higher than our peers. That’s what that’s all about.

RESIDENT A: You said that the marketing campaign is designed to go to schools to urge students to use the bus more. I’ve watched the campaign over the last two years, and much of it has nothing to do with urging people to ride the bus. “TheRide, your way, vote on Tuesday.” “TheRide gets people to jobs for a healthy economy. Vote May 6.” “TheRide is essential for independent living. Vote May 6.” It’s all feel-good stuff to make people feel good about the AAATA – and damn little of it is the kind of thing the Ann Arbor District Library has, which is: We have a program here and we have a program here – Ya’ll come.

MICHAEL BENHAM: The Ride Guide is something we publish three times a year that has all information about how to ride the bus, the different kinds of tickets that are available, how to use the Blake Transit Center – so this is a central book. This is our bread and butter.

RESIDENT A: I’ve lived here 45 years, and I’ve never seen a more expensive taxpayer-funded millage campaign than the one I’m experiencing right now.

RESIDENT B: You think there’s something wrong with the AAATA telling you that there is a millage vote going on?!

MARY STASIAK: It would be completely inappropriate for the agency not to tell people that there was a vote coming up. And it’s really important that we tell people that there is a vote so that they can have a choice and they can decide for themselves what it is and how they want to vote. And you learn about it. It’s our job to tell you that this is what would be included and what you would be paying for. If we did not do that, then I would say shame on us.

SALLY PETERSEN: The sentiment I’m hearing is that some of the informational literature – knowing that you’re not a campaign organization – it feels like it’s going right up on the edge of being campaign propaganda. You say to vote, but you don’t say how to vote.

RESIDENT C: If you say you want as many people to know about it as possible, why are you having it in May instead of voting when we’re voting for governor [in November]?

MARY STASIAK: We did that on purpose so that we would not be competing with all the other issues, so that people have a clear understanding of what they were voting on.

RESIDENT C: You’d have another three months to learn about it.

AAATA Efficiency: Overall Perception

Question: I just want to say that the city, the schools and all of us workers have had to become more lean-and-mean. And I have not seen that from this presentation. We feel like [the marketing campaign] is more grandiose spending of money. We want to see you be lean-and-mean like we’ve all had to – in our jobs and our schools, and our state government. We feel like you could be a little more lean-and-mean on things.

MICHAEL BENHAM: There’s two ways to succeed in business. One is to slash and cut – bring out the meat cleaver, slash costs to the bone to the point where it really hurts your product. The other way to do it is to do what we’ve been doing – which is to build up our customer base, build our customers so we have that 50% more than our peers. We are a lean-and-mean organization. We keep a constant eye on costs and we are always looking at ways to save a few dollars here and there. But by the same token, we pay attention to our customers, both our existing customers and the many people out there who would be our customers in the future. It’s really about how to succeed in business, and I think that’s what we’re doing.

RESIDENT D: Being a teacher, lean-and-mean is not serving our students.

AAATA Efficiency: Comparative National Stats

When Benham referred to the AAATA’s 50% greater ridership per service hour than its peer group, he was citing the result of a peer-group comparison analysis from a tool that is available through the Florida Transit Information System (FTIS) based on recommendations from the Transit Cooperative Research Program.

To determine a peer group, the tool relies on the following criteria to establish a “likeness” index between a transit agency and other transit agencies nationwide:

• urban area population
• total annual vehicle miles operated
• annual operating budget
• population density
• percent of college students
• population growth rate
• percent service purchased
• percent low-income population
• annual delay (hours) per traveler
• freeway lane miles (thousands) per capita
• percent service demand-responsive
• distance between agencies

Based on the “likeness” index, it’s possible to select the top 20 (or any number) of other transit agencies to analyze in comparison to the AAATA. Measured on the above criteria, using 2010 demographic survey information, the most similar 20 organizations to the AAATA are transit agencies in these peer communities: Peoria, IL; Lexington, KY; Moline, IL; Lansing, MI; Syracuse, NY; Savannah, GA; Champaign-Urbana, IL; Roanoke, VA; Concord, CA; Erie, PA; Kalamazoo, MI; Harrisburg, PA; Fort Wayne, IN; Rockford, IL; Shreveport, LA; Hartford, CT; Fort Collins, CO; Scranton, PA; Gainesville, FL; and South Bend, IN.

The peer group scoring based on the following year’s data resulted in a group of peers that overlapped in 19 out of 20 cases, with some minor shuffling of “likeness” scores.

Using the same tool, The Chronicle was able to replicate the AAATA’s conclusions in determining the peer group, as well as the comparative analysis for three metrics. For its fixed-route service, the AAATA’s cost per service hour is higher than its peer group average. But the AAATA’s number of riders per service hour is higher than its peer group. The number of riders per service hour is sufficiently higher that it pushes the AAATA’s cost per ride lower than its peer group.

In the charts below, the AAATA is always presented in the leftmost bar, and the other transit agencies are presented from left to right in their rank order of “likeness.” The peer group median is shown in a horizontal red line.

AAATA Operating Expense per Revenue Hour compared against FTIS Top 20 peers. Top 20 peers to AAATA are based on Florida Transit Information System (FTIS) analysis. Data from Integrated National Transit Database Analysis System (INTDAS), developed for Florida Department of Transportation by Lehman Center for Transportation Research, Florida International University, http://www.ftis.org/intdas.html, accessed Nov. 22, 2013.

AAATA Passenger Trips per Revenue Hour compared against FTIS Top 20 peers. Top 20 peers to AAATA based on Florida Transit Information System (FTIS) analysis. Data from Integrated National Transit Database Analysis System (INTDAS), developed for Florida Department of Transportation by Lehman Center for Transportation Research, Florida International University, http://www.ftis.org/intdas.html, accessed Nov. 22, 2013.

AAATA Operating Expense per Trip compared against FTIS Top 20 peers. Top 20 peers to AAATA based on Florida Transit Information System (FTIS) analysis. Data from Integrated National Transit Database Analysis System (INTDAS), developed for Florida Department of Transportation by Lehman Center for Transportation Research, Florida International University, http://www.ftis.org/intdas.html, accessed Nov. 22, 2013.

While there’s been considerable public back and forth between opponents of the millage and the AAATA about the number of managers employed at the authority, the National Transit Database includes administrative employees and total employees (as well as other categories of employees) as variables. For 2012, the database shows 26.5 FTE in administration and 181 total employees. If administrative FTEs are computed as a percent of the total and that statistic is compared to the AAATA’s peer group, the AAATA’s percentage is higher than the peer group median:

AAATA Administrative Employees as a Percentage compared against FTIS Top 20 peers. Top 20 peers to AAATA based on Florida Transit Information System (FTIS)

Historically, the number of administrative employees at the AAATA has trended higher over the last three years, as the organization has added capacity for planning and development of service expansion alternatives and public engagement. At the April 29 meeting, AAATA representatives indicated that if the millage passes, the service improvements would result in 60 additional bus driver positions, but not add administrative positions. That mix (shown in the red bar) would bring AAATA’s administrative staff ratio back in line with the percentage the AAATA has had historically:

AAATA Historical Employees as a Percentage charted with data from the Florida Transit Information System (FTIS)

The AAATA’s higher ridership also means that the number of rides provided per employee is higher than its peer group:

AAATA Trips per FTE compared against FTIS Top 20 peers. Top 20 peers to AAATA based on Florida Transit Information System (FTIS) analysis. Data from Integrated National Transit Database Analysis System (INTDAS), developed for Florida Department of Transportation by Lehman Center for Transportation Research, Florida International University, http://www.ftis.org/intdas.html, accessed Nov. 22, 2013.

Funding Sources for Public Transportation

In addition to questions about millage mechanics, several of the questions from residents touched on various funding sources and why they are not being used instead of a millage.

Funding Sources: AAATA Millage – We Already Pay

Question: The $70 that this millage would cost the owner of a $200,000 house is on top of the city millage of 2 mills that we are paying already – so you’re not just paying $70, you’re paying $270.

MICHAEL BENHAM: That’s a good point, and we have balanced the service with the revenues. While Ann Arbor is paying more for the service – because of these stacked millages – Ann Arbor is getting the overwhelming majority of the service. Ypsilanti is putting 0.7 mills on top of their roughly 1 mill and they’re getting that level of service.

Funding Sources: AAATA Millage – After Five Years?

Question: If this is a five-year plan, does this imply no request for an increased millage for the next five years?

MICHAEL BENHAM: We haven’t really looked that far, to be honest. There’s more need for service out there, there’s no question about it, but we have not made any plans to expand the system beyond five years. You have seen our 30-year plan. We need to be flexible in response to changes: A new employer coming into town, or a new large set of apartments can change a lot of our plans. As long as growth continues, I think it is safe to say there will be more services needed out there. We are aware already that our proposed services won’t serve all of the needs. But we are also aware that the public appetite for providing transit on every street is not there.

CHRIS WHITE: I think an important point of this is that we have tried to be careful in planning the funding so that the 0.7 mills is sufficient to fund the service plan in place. And at the end of that five-year period, that same millage rate would be sufficient to carry it forward. We are not going to wind up in a position at the end of five years where we say that we can’t continue the service after five years unless we get a higher millage. So we tried to be careful in planning. That has been the intention to make sure that 0.7 mills is sufficient pay the service now, and into the future after five years.

Question: If the millage passes – which is 35% more than what we’re paying now – and we’re not happy with it, can we vote it down or do we have it forever?

CHRIS WHITE: At the end of five years, this millage would come up for renewal. [Yes, it could be voted down.]

Funding Sources: RTA Millage?

By way of background, the southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority was established in a lame duck session of the Michigan legislature in late 2012, and includes a four-county region – Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne – with each county making two appointments to the board, and the city of Detroit making one.

Question: What about concurrent millages? If the AAATA millage passes, and in 2016 when the regional transit authority (RTA) asks for one, is there any guarantee that there can’t be any concurrent millages that will be added on top of this?

CHRIS WHITE: It’s really hard to say what the RTA is going to do. They’ve been working really hard to get their act together. But it is going very slowly. If there’s anything from the RTA, it will be for the region and for regional service, not for local service within Washtenaw County. If there’s going to be regional service, that will be the RTA’s role and they would have to seek funding from that four-county region.

MICHAEL BENHAM: One of the things that we are concerned about is that the RTA is out there, but we don’t know when they are going to be able to take care of the needs that are out there. The needs are here today. At the earliest, it would be two years before they’re even prepared to request funding. We felt like the needs were pretty urgent.

Funding Sources: State, Federal

Question: How long are the matching funds that you are requesting supposed to last? Are you counting on those funds to remain in place in perpetuity?

CHRIS WHITE: It’s something we worry about a fair amount. It’s one of the reasons we have always had a reserve account – to try to make sure that something doesn’t happen. The state funding mechanism has been in place since 1974, and since that time the state has funded public transit pretty much the same way. Funding as a percentage of operations has been declining over a long period time – but at a very gradual rate, and we’ve been able to manage. The state provides a match for federal capital funds – and that is the first priority for funds that come from what is called the state’s Comprehensive Transportation Fund. So from the state, you have a long history but that doesn’t mean it can’t change.

RESIDENT E: So does the millage increase take that into account or not?

CHRIS WHITE: The budgeting for the millage increase includes a continuation of that state funding that has been in place for 30 years. The second part of it is federal funding – and we also count on federal funding. Similar to state funding, the basic formula for federal funding has been in place for 30 years. The difference with federal funding is that we have seen very steady increases in the level of funding. Part of that funding is based on the population of our urbanized area.

Part of it is based on the amount of service we provide and the amount of service that gets used. That funding has been increasing. We are not counting on further increases, but we are counting on the continuation of that funding source that has been in place for 30 years. So yes, that is something that we worry about in terms of what we could do in the future. But there’s also some pretty significant planning in place. Unlike most places, we don’t spend all of the federal money in the year that we receive it. The feds are nice, they give us money, and they actually let us plan how to use it. The money we get this year we can use over the next three years.

What we do is put together a five-year plan. We bank some of that money, partly for that eventuality that if something happens, we make sure that we can smooth out any change.

RESIDENT E: So you’re asking for more money than you really need?

CHRIS WHITE: No.

RESIDENT E: But if you have money in reserves, you are asking for more money than what you need for operating.

CHRIS WHITE: It is wise and prudent for any organization to have some level of reserves to make sure that they can weather unforeseen circumstances. With transit service, if something happens, we’re not going to just shut the doors. We’re going to be able to do a plan to change. But reserves are something we actually have to have.

MICHAEL BENHAM: Remember the federal shutdown. We need to be prepared if there is a temporary problem. If there is a longer-term problem, this is not entirely out of our control. We do work very closely with our congressional delegation, we work with our local delegation in Lansing, and with the other transit agencies to really push for these funding programs. It’s not that we’re sitting back waiting for something to happen. We work hard to influence those programs. Keep in mind that there are 450 other transit agencies in this country and we work together to push hard for that funding and we have been successful for 30 years.

Funding Sources: Purchase of Service Agreements (POSAs)

Question: What aren’t increases to POSAs being considered as a way to offset increasing costs?

MICHAEL BENHAM: POSAs cost what the service is worth – what it costs the AAATA. If we increase the cost of the POSA, that would not be fair: We would be getting more for the service than what it costs us. We take the number of service hours we are providing and multiply that by the fully-allocated cost for service – that’s the cost. Then we give the POSA community credit for: (1) the fares that are collected; (2) the state share (the state provides 30% of the cost); and (3) the federal share – because some of that is earned for their operation for their riders. The difference between the cost and those three revenue sources is the amount that a POSA community is required to pay to get their service.

Funding Sources: Fares

Question: Why aren’t fare increases being pursued as an option for funding increased costs?

[In response to a different question, AAATA staff explained that $3.36 is the AAATA's cost per rider on the fixed-route system. The full cash fare is $1.50. The average fare paid by passengers is about $0.80. That lower average is due to a variety of factors: transfers are free; and discount fares are provided for seniors and people with disabilities, low-income people and students.]

CHRIS WHITE: We increased the fare 50% in the last five years. There was a 25% increase in 2010 and another 25% increase in 2011. [These two increases lifted the full cash fare from $1 to $1.50.] So that’s a substantial increase. That fare increase is passed through to everybody who pays fares, including the third-party fares that we get from a lot of organizations [such as the University of Michigan and go!pass program].

Funding Source: Fares from Third Parties

Question: Why does the University of Michigan pay only $1.25 million per year for 2.5 million rides. That’s $0.50 a ride.

[The key fact is that UM's reimbursement to the AAATA is made partly in cash, and partly through federal funds. The question assumes that the cash portion is the only reimbursement.]

MICHAEL BENHAM: The university reimburses us $1 for every single ride – we get reimbursed at a rate that’s slightly higher than the average fare.

CHRIS WHITE: For 2.4 million rides, the amount that we see from the university is about $1.2 million in cash. It’s a little complex. Part of the federal formula for determining funding allocations is based on riders, passenger miles, and vehicle miles. The University of Michigan provides a public transit service [through its blue bus system.] One of the things the AAATA did 15 years ago was convince the university to start filing a report with the feds – an actual transit database report – which brings in the federal funds for the University of Michigan’s bus operation.

The agreement we have with university for their faculty, staff, and students – which allows them to board AAATA buses without paying the fare to get on – turns over to us the federal funds that are earned by the University of Michigan bus system. We got $1.35 million in federal funds last year from that, and every year it’s going up. And if the ridership goes up, they will pay more. But for every university rider, we get a dollar.

It sounds like something is wrong there because the full cash fare is $1.50. But the AAATA board of directors looks at two things. First, university employees live in this community, and they pay taxes in this community, and they are entitled to public transit services as well. That’s one thing that gets lost. The second thing is that we do sell passes to anyone at a volume discount. You can buy a monthly pass and it costs $58. When people use those monthly passes, we count how many times they use it.

It works out on average to about 90-91 cents per boarding. We charge the University of Michigan $1 per boarding. So we’re actually charging them more – about 10% more – than the least expensive fare that anybody in the public can get. We don’t give away service to people. We have partnerships and we use them. One of the advantages is that it gives us the fare revenue and also gives us the productivity to allow us to look at expanding services. We feel pretty strongly that we have an obligation to provide comprehensive transit service to allow people who live in this community who do not drive – a lot of them choose not to drive. So having a public transit system is an important thing that we feel are required to try and do. The nice thing is that we can add ridership from some of these riders of choice, and that helps us to expand service that benefits the entire community.

Funding Sources: Fares – National Stats

The farebox recovery ratio is the percentage of costs covered by passenger fares. Using the same kind of peer group comparison as above, it’s possible to analyze AAATA’s farebox recovery ratio with its national peers. The AAATA has about the same farebox recovery ratio as the average of its peer group:

AAATA Farebox Recovery compared against FTIS Top 20 peers. Top 20 peers to AAATA based on Florida Transit Information System (FTIS) analysis. Data from Integrated National Transit Database Analysis System (INTDAS), developed for Florida Department of Transportation by Lehman Center for Transportation Research, Florida International University, http://www.ftis.org/intdas.html, accessed Nov. 22, 2013.

The AAATA’s farebox recovery ratio has trended upward in recent years, attributable to fare increases implemented in 2010 and 2011 ($0.25 both years for a total increase from $1 to $1.50).

AAATA Farebox Recovery Historical Trend with data from Integrated National Transit Database Analysis System (INTDAS), developed for Florida Department of Transportation by Lehman Center for Transportation Research, Florida International University.

Farebox recovery is also influenced by ridership. All other things being equal, more riders means a higher farebox recovery ratio, because more riders generate more fares. Ridership on AAATA fixed-route buses has trended upward:

Fixed-route AAATA ridership by year. (Data from AAATA, charted by The Chronicle.)

All other things being equal, increasing ridership also pushes the cost per ride downward:

AAATA Farebox Operating Expense Per Passenger Trip with data from Integrated National Transit Database Analysis System (INTDAS), developed for Florida Department of Transportation by Lehman Center for Transportation Research, Florida International University.

Funding Sources: Restricted – BTC Construction

Question: The AAATA spent a great deal of money on a new transit center. Why? Why was that money not spent on moving people?

CHRIS WHITE: The money we spent on that was 80% federal funds and 20% state funds – that we received by making a competitive application for it. Those are federal funds that were brought into the community that would not otherwise have come, in order to improve that transit center. The old transit center was for a variety of reasons undersized and was 25 years old, so it was time for a new facility.

That new facility provides a much better waiting area for riders. But it also allows us to provide information to those riders so that they can see what buses have arrived. If you’re familiar with the arrangement we have downtown, we have a transit mall where we have six buses, and we have the east side of Fourth Avenue where we have eight buses. The farthest buses towards Liberty Street are out of sight, and it’s a little hard to see when the buses arrive. So part of the idea is to provide a new facility that allows us to provide electronic information, much as you would see at transit centers in other cities.

Funding Sources: Restricted – Planning

Question: I’ve heard that in the 2014 AAATA budget that there is a planning category that includes $2 million just for three things – WALLY [north-south commuter rail], the Connector [a high-capacity link from US-23 and Plymouth down through UM campus, downtown southward to State and I-94], and something called “urban core” planning. Now if this is true, why shouldn’t that $2 million be used for improving services rather than expanding into newfangled, improbable, grandiose schemes? You’re talking about service and the need for service for handicapped people, etc. In the budget apparently is WALLY – to subsidize people who live in Ann Arbor and work here to move to low-tax Livingston County so they can get the best of all worlds. Or the Connector, that largely benefits the university but won’t pay for it.

CHRIS WHITE: The budget figure is correct but your observation does not reflect the revenue sources that support it. The Connector is an initiative that came out of the city’s transportation plan. The AAATA is the lead agency for that, and we have a $1.2 million grant from the federal government for that specific purpose. So we made a competitive application and we got money for that. There’s another $300,000 that has to come from partners. The University of Michigan is paying half of that $300,000. The AAATA is paying $60,000 and the city and the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority are splitting the remainder. The amount the AAATA is paying is $60,000.

MICHAEL BENHAM: WALLY is a joint project with the state. The state got $650,000 to study WALLY and it is a research and development project. There’s also some local money, but it is not our money – those are contributions by other organizations within the county and from Livingston County to pay for the local match.

Transit Service

The evening led off with a presentation from AAATA staff describing the historical background of governance changes to the AAATA over the last year, and a description of the 5-year service plan the new millage is supposed to pay for. A number of questions dealt with operational aspects of specific types of service.

Transit Service: Description of Improvements: Fixed Route

Chris White gave a description of the fixed-route service improvements the millage would pay for.

CHRIS WHITE: One of the points I want to make up front is that the proposed millage is to fund additional service. We provide a pretty extensive suite of services now. Our fixed-route service, A-Ride (for people with disabilities), Good as Gold (for seniors) – those will continue regardless of what happens with the millage. The vote is to provide additional service.

There is a schedule book that we put together that we call the Ride Guide of the future that we brought to all the public meetings – specific schedules for all the routes that we are proposing, so that people could know what we’re proposing to do, so that you can give us input on and make comments on it, and we could go back and make revisions to that plan and respond to that. A number of revisions got made that way. Overall, what we’re proposing to do is about a 44% increase in our fixed-route service hours. There also increases in our A-Ride service – the service for people with disabilities and seniors.

The first element of that we would do in August 2014 – a few months from now, if the vote is successful – is to extend the end time of our service on weekdays on most of the routes. Most of the routes would go from 10:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. There are a couple of routes where we don’t have evening service on now that we would extend into the evening, and one of them is the route that serves this area – Route #2C that comes down Green and goes to Glacier Hills. Another one is the Route #14 route that serves Arbor Hills. Those routes would be extended to between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.

The second element of the plan is later evening service on weekends. It’s one of the very specific requests we get – to have Saturday evening service. Service currently ends between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. on most routes on Saturday. Service would be extended about an hour on all the routes in the first year if the millage passes, starting in August 2014. And then in August 2015, service would be extended essentially on all routes to between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Saturdays.

That would also lead to an extension of our A-Ride and Good as Gold services. So if someone is out for a play, a concert, or on campus, they would be able to get home easily.

There’s variety of routes where we’re extending service by adding more frequent trips. A lot of people know that on Route #4, which is our Washtenaw Avenue route, our busiest ridership, we doubled the weekly frequency in January 2012 as kind of an advance implementation of this plan. That service was acutely successful and a year later we added more frequency on our Route #5, because we were having problems with capacity and on-time performance on that route.

As part of the service plan that we’re proposing, we’ve increased frequency and capacity on a number of routes in Ann Arbor. Route #2 is the route that serves the Plymouth Road area and north of Plymouth Road. We’re adding a bus midday to take care of problems we’re having with crowded buses on that route. We’re not able to accommodate the loads on that route at that time. We have service on a route that goes down to Briarwood and then out Ellsworth. That service is going to be doubled in frequency in 2017 in the plan. And we have a number of routes on the west side of Ann Arbor, where we’re redoing those routes. [White also described the reconfiguration of routes – converting some loops to out-and-back routes, which allows flexibility to extend service farther out in the future.]

Transit Service: Description of Improvements: Paratransit

Question: How are the paratransit and dial-a-ride services [A-Ride for people with disabilities and Good as Gold for seniors] being improved and how do people request this?

CHRIS WHITE: Every place we are increasing service hours, those service hour extensions apply to our door-to-door, paratransit services as well. It applies to new destinations as well. Our coverage in Ann Arbor is already such that the fixed-route improvements don’t mean a lot of new areas are served within Ann Arbor – improvements inside Ann Arbor are mostly in terms of frequency and time of day. But some locations have been added – the Pittsfield branch of the Ann Arbor District Library, the Costco on Ellsworth, the Quality 16 movie theater and the Meijer on Jackson Road. The AAATA is a little hesitant to talk about the Jackson Road locations, as an agreement would still need to be worked out with Scio Township on that. In Ypsilanti, the Ypsilanti District Library and the District Court are actually important destinations even for a lot of people from Ann Arbor.

MICHAEL BENHAM: The weekend and night service expands for paratransit service whenever we extend fixed-route service. That’s a huge expansion of service, if you don’t have to be in by 6:30 p.m. and can actually take in a movie and dinner.

CHRIS WHITE: Another thing that a lot of people don’t know about is that we have a tentative arrangement with the University Michigan so that the A-Ride service and the Good as Gold service goes to the East Ann Arbor Medical Center and Domino’s Farms. The University Michigan is actually paying for the additional cost of those trips. We have not been able to get an agreement to do fixed-route service yet.

Question: Can you talk about the LAC?

CHRIS WHITE: For a long time, we have established a group called the local advisory council (LAC) – a group of people with disabilities and seniors that is an advisory committee to our board, which meets monthly. A number of years ago we had a number of people who were agency reps on that. But we found that it’s actually much more effective to have people who are actually using the service. It’s been a very, very important group to us, because in essence there is mutual group training going on. We’re learning more about how they use the service and they are learning more about how transit operates and what some of our limitations are. So we get a group of people who have some expertise to give us really quality advice about what we can do to improve the service – door-to-door services, as well as how we can provide our fixed-route service. The LAC has been a real benefit to us over the years.

Transit Service: Why Large Buses?

Question: Why do you run such large buses, and why do you use such large buses all the time?

MICHAEL BENHAM: The peak hours do tend to be the busiest, but even off-peak tends to be pretty busy, particularly on certain routes. It’s only in the very off-peak routes that we have the less-used buses. We could switch to smaller buses during those off-peak hours, but then we would have two separate, duplicative fleets of buses to maintain. We’d need a larger bus garage. And we would have to maintain a whole different fleet and would have to buy that fleet. It is a trade-off. We do have a van ride program – that’s a fleet of small vehicles, 6-8 passengers, where the driver is actually one of the users of the bus. That is one of our answers to what we call low-density transportation, where you don’t have a lot of people traveling down a specific corridor. Demand-response service is another way we do that. And we’re also thinking about the possibility of smaller vehicles in some of the starter services on new routes where we would not expect to fill up a large bus on day one.

CHRIS WHITE: It’s particularly pertinent in this neighborhood. If you live on Earhart and Green road in this area, the bus that you can see most of the time is going to be empty: It’s near the end of the route. That bus may have been very full and probably was very full during other parts of the route. But as it gets to the end of the route, it’s emptying and emptying.

RESIDENT F: I was on the Route 2C six weeks ago, and there were five people when I got on, and there were 60 by the time I got off on campus.

Transit Service: Ward 2 Service

Question: Are there any plans to increase the frequency of buses for Route #2B on the weekends? Why are there no new bus routes in the northeast corner? What are my taxes going for? Will you consider route reorganization to improve crosstown transit time, if you are not heading in and out of downtown?

CHRIS WHITE: It’s about balancing demand and the level of services. The Saturday morning service on Route #2 is once per hour. But it increases to every half hour on Saturday afternoon. There are quite a few routes in the system that are just hourly service all day on Saturday. One of the things that we’ve seen some change in over the last few years is ridership during the off-peak hours. That’s what this service plan is supposed to address – some of that demand.

We’re seeing an increase in demand in the evenings and on Saturdays. Route #2 is not scheduled for an increase except for the fact that we’re going to do one earlier trip – that’s the only increase on Saturdays for Route #2. This area of town has changed significantly. Historically, this is a pretty low ridership area. But demand has grown significantly and we have seen a lot of increase in demand for service in this area. We provide service every 15 minutes all day on the trunk of the route, and then it divides into three alternatives that provide service less frequently in this area.

Question: Route 2 has three variants right now. Can’t that be split up and have a separate loop? I can speak from experience that part of the problem with lower rider volume is that people had taken the bus, but now they can’t depend on being able to go back out on the route they came in on in a timely manner – especially if they’re under a time constraint or they got delayed at their appointment or something. It can be an hour between buses – and for me that’s not acceptable. You can’t wait at a school or library for that period of time.

CHRIS WHITE: Yes. And part of this five-year service plan is to try to reduce those places where we just do hourly service. But there’s a limit to how much we can do. One of the things that we try to balance is that demand for service and the quality of service that we’re providing. On a fairly regular basis we look at low productivity service. There’ve been high levels of service provided in an area, and we have reduced it some if we did not generate the ridership to justify it.

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On May 6, voters in three jurisdictions – the city of Ann Arbor, the city of Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township – will be asked to approve a 0.7 mill tax to support improvements to transportation service. The board of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority voted at its Feb. 20, 2014 meeting to place the question on the ballot.

In Ann Arbor, 1,529 absentee ballots were sent out in the first wave.

Of the 1,529 ballots, the initial distribution across Ann Arbor’s five wards appears to be skewed somewhat more heavily toward voters in Ward 2, with roughly 27% of the ballots requested from that ward. Based on requested ballots, the lightest participation so far is in Ward 1, with roughly 11% of the AV ballots requested from that ward. Precise figures are difficult to calculate, because some of the combined precincts for this election cross ward boundaries.

Registered voters can apply for an absentee ballot by mail until May 3. Registered voters can also apply for and vote an absentee ballot in-person at the city clerk’s office at city hall on the day before the election. The absentee ballot application form can be mailed or hand delivered to the city clerk at 301 E. Huron St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104. It can also be scanned and emailed to cityclerk@a2gov.org.