Regional transit authority will get you moving

With an Alaska Railroad train gleaming in the sun behind them, Matanuska-Susitna Borough Mayor Curt Menard and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich recently signed a joint agreement to create a Regional Transit Authority to better serve commuters in the region.

As gas prices skyrocket, demand for transit has never been higher. Park-and-ride lots in the Valley are at overflow, the popular Share-a-Van program has a 700-person waiting list, and Anchorage and Mat-Su buses are seeing double-digit ridership growth. Existing commuter services are at capacity, and demand has quickly outpaced supply.

In addition to home heating and electricity costs, transportation costs are a big piece of the energy challenge that state and local leaders are seeking to address. Pain at the pump is causing hardship in Alaska’s urban areas and eating up household budgets from Ketchikan to Fairbanks.

In Alaska’s busiest commuter corridor, more than 14,000 people commute between Anchorage and the Mat-Su every day. Without meaningful strategies to address the unprecedented cost of this commute, the economic success and land-use patterns of both communities could be undermined by a breakdown in the economics of daily transportation.

As local leaders work to deliver additional services in the short-term and build an integrated transit system for the long-term, we want to hear from you. We’ve set up a short survey and feedback form at the MSB Transportation Division’s website, http://www.matsugov.us/Planning/tem.cfm , under the link “Commuter / RTA Survey.” If you’re interested in commuter service by train, bus, van or carpool, this is your chance to weigh in on what you’d like to see happen and how you think it should work for you.

You’re also invited to a Transportation Fair on Sept. 25 at Raven Hall on the state fairgrounds from 4 to 9 p.m. State and local transportation officials will be on hand with information about projects in the area and options for more cost-effective commuting.

There are many options to improve service for commuters now and into the future. The quickest addition we can make is to add vans and buses to existing service. That 700-person waiting list for van pools we mentioned earlier will require 50 additional vans, and we are also working to put more buses on the road to further expand capacity.

To put these vehicles into service, it will take resources — and as commuters are telling us, these services are needed yesterday, if not sooner. State support of additional transit capacity would jump-start this effort and enable communities around the state to benefit relatively quickly. Today, Alaska is one of only a handful of states that does not contribute resources to local transit service, and the current effort to address rising energy costs for Alaskans is a logical place for the state to play this critical role.

As we plan for even more ambitious service, like commuter rail, a key element is integration. It’s not hard to see that a commuter rail service won’t be very popular unless Valley residents can board easily and then connect with convenient, cost-competitive links from the train depot to major employment centers in South Anchorage, Midtown, U-Med and Downtown. Those links need to be seamless for the traveler — one pass, one price.

That kind of “doorstep-to-doorstep” coordination is best done by a Regional Transit Authority, planning and deploying multi-modal service powered by a combination of federal, state, local, and ridership fare revenue. That’s why Mayor Begich and Mayor Menard have charted a course to create an RTA for our region, and with your advice and involvement we can make convenient, competitive service a reality for residents of Anchorage and the Mat-Su.

Let’s get moving!

This column was compiled by John Duffy, Mat-Su Borough, Randy Virgin, Municipality of Anchorage, and Bruce Carr, Alaska Railroad.