VCTC: Unmet Needs Assessment also address agency’s funding needs
February 05, 2016
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
The only thing for sure at last week’s Ventura County Transportation Commission’s (VCTC) Unmet Needs Assessment is that VCTC needs money to help cure countywide transportation woes, funding the agency is hoping to garner through a sales tax measure.
The January 26 meeting brought a handful of residents to the Community Center including Kate English, VCTC staff, Interim Public Works Director Brian Yanez as well as Vice Mayor Jenny Crosswhite and Councilman John Procter. Several residents sharply questioned the goal of the meeting as well as the recent rise in Dial A Ride services.
A Santa Paula resident, English is the coordinator of One Step A La Vez of Fillmore, a youth group active various issues including transportation.
Bus passes are given to La Vez members and English said before the meeting that the group’s Youth Transportation Committee is interested in expanding bus service to Santa Clarita in Los Angeles County, an area that offers more employment and entertainment opportunities.
“Some of you may know who we are,” and recognize VCTC’s blue buses that offer transportation from city to city on Highway 126, said Planning Director Steve DeGeorge.
“We do more than buses,” but also fund street and highway projects as well as those for pedestrians and bicyclists.
“We invited you here tonight to discuss transit needs but it’s important to set the context for that,” by addressing finances and funding.
Ventura County, said DeGeorge, “is in a sort of jam…what used to be stop and go traffic is now stopped traffic,” that has grown progressively worse in the last decade and.
County roads are also bad and DeGeorge said it is recognized that the “Conditions of the streets in Santa Paula is getting worse…”
Traffic, bad roads and streets, transit shortfalls and other issues “Hurts us as a whole, hurts the economy,” through lost opportunities by those businesses that rethink staying or locating in Ventura County where goods are getting increasingly hard to move as well as cutting in to tourism and retail sales.
Transportation funding has “shifted” over the last several years with formally healthy federal funding and state money stopped “or down to a dribble…and if the feds give you a dollar they want to contribute 50 cents.”
Ventura County is the only urbanized Southern California without a sales tax to fund transportation: “We have to cobble together our funds and it makes us unable to compete,” for grants that require a match.
Unfunded projects include widening sections of the 118 and 101 as well as connection of Highway 126 to the southbound 101 to avoid exiting at Wells Road in Saticoy or Victoria Avenue in Ventura to make the connection.
Such a sales tax would require at least two-thirds voter approval.
VCTC Executive Director Darren Kettle, “Calls the 101 Main Street Ventura…and that traffic will double in 20 years.”
The VCTC is “barely able to sustain what we have,” when it comes to transit and a tax could stabilize fares “for those that need it the most,” seniors and the disabled.
DeGeorge said a VCTC sales tax would “provide local control of local projects…40 percent of the revenue would be returned to the cities,” funds that can’t be diverted to the state.
After more comment a woman raised her hand: “I’m a little irritated,” as she expected a discussion on the new rate increase for Dial A Ride, with fares across the board raised to $2 for a one-way trip. That also applied to fares for the disable and senior citizens who saw the 85-cent fare increase by more than 230 percent.
The woman also questioned the discussion on the proposed tax and indicated she was resentful that the meeting was not as advertised — and had not been advertised enough.
“I’m also curious about public notification,” as there were no flyers about the upcoming meeting on the Dial A Ride bus, although another audience member said fixed route Valley Express buses had flyers about the session for about 10 days.
“Transportation,” said DeGeorge, “is very subtle…people forget it’s a lifeline service, even being able to get down the road is a lifeline service.”
Several audience members questioned how the tax would be distributed and, in Crosswhite’s case, if it even would be distributed.
Crosswhite noted Santa Paulan voters approved the Ventura Community College District parcel tax measure in the mid-2000s, a measure that was promised to provide the Santa Clara River Valley with $25 million for an area campus.
“We got nothing,” when the district claimed other projects were underfunded and pulled the full allocation, a tax that Crosswhite noted residents must still pay every year.
After more discussion DeGeorge said the California Lutheran University economic forecaster “told us it [half-cent sales tax] would cost the average resident of Ventura County a dollar a week.”
After some more comment Yanez spoke up.
“We’re committed to making transit better…and if we don’t hear from those that use the system we don’t know how to make it better. We have VCTC and city staff,” that meets monthly to address transportation needs and solutions.
Yanez added that City Councilwoman Ginger Gherardi, Fillmore Councilman Manuel Minjares and Supervisor Kathy Long are VCTC members who work in the best interest of river valley residents.
Local inner-city bus service through the Joint Powers Agreement forged in recent years between Santa Paula, Fillmore and Piru is still in its early stages: “We’re trying to get it right,” said Yanez. “We’re trying to get that input and we’re here to get it right…our ears are always open,” and efforts to fine-tune and improve service is “ongoing…”
“Brian’s absolutely right,” said DeGeorge. “We need to know tonight and need to know everyday,” what the transportation needs of citizens are.
Following the discussion VCTC staff was available to answer questions and solicit input into unmet transportation needs.
