University Assembly Transportation Advisory Committee

Transportation and Advisory Committee
Minutes from Wednesday, January 23, 2008
12:15 PM — 1:30 PM, 316 Day Hall Boardroom

Present

Marisa LaFalce, Leon Lawrence, David Lieb, John Ludders, David Proctor

Present, ex-officio

Judy Eckard, David Lieb, Helen Steh

Absent

Mazdak Asgary, Inda Mahler (L. Lawrence attended for her)

M. LaFalce called the meeting to order at 12:20 PM. She asked for corrections to the November minutes; none were made and the minutes were approved.

L. Lawrence asked if there would be bike parking at the new Child Care Center. M. LaFalce asked if there will be enough drop-off area at the center. J. Eckard said that they have asked John Kiefer, Director of Design and Construction to come to the February meeting and will ask him to bring the center’s layout.

Transportation Updates

Student Program

D. Lieb said there are no planned changes for 2008–09. Transportation will continue to give new-to-Cornell students OmniRide access at no fee and all students transit access after 6:00 PM and on weekends for all TCAT buses. The student transit fee will continue to be $125 for a semester and $200 for the year. J. Ludders asked for clarification on who is “new-to-Cornell”. D. Lieb said a student is new the first time they matriculate at Cornell.

D. Proctor wanted to know the financial logic behind the free nights and weekends without a change in price. D. Lieb said the goal was to try to break the catch 22 related to the buses — there is very little ability to add daytime service to TCAT’s schedule due to limited equipment. In order to add to their equipment, they need to show more demand — which adding the nights and weekends does.

Parking Fees

Parking fees for the past several years have gone up by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and will do so again this year.

The University Avenue parking lot built several years ago in conjunction with the West Campus Residential Initiative (WCRI) has been used for construction parking. The last building will be finished in the summer and then the lot will be available for students and staff parking. H. Steh said there will be about 175 spaces added to the university inventory.

Vanpool

J. Eckard said that the Vanpool Program will be gearing up to start sometime next summer. She passed out the Regional Vanpool Program proposed by VPSI, the company that will be providing the service. TCAT will be the program sponsor as it is a community vanpool program. In order for the program to start, Cornell is going to subsidize the program ($700/month/van) for the first two years. After that TCAT will be reimbursed by the Federal Transit Administration. The subsidy is similar to that of public transit. Cornell will also be providing additional incentives to its community members, yet to be determined. The Cornell program will be for faculty, staff and grad/professional students.

Transit

M. LaFalce asked H. Steh to explain the transit fee structure. H. Steh said that transit is free to all faculty/staff and temps who have Cornell ID cards. Cornell pays the fare, M-F in Zone 1. OmniRide is free to faculty/staff with benefits and gives them 24/7 access to all transit in Tompkins County. They cannot hold a parking permit, but they can get three books of 10-daily parking permits per year.

D. Lieb noted that of TCAT’s 3 million rides per year, Cornell pays for 2.4 million rides. Also, as a partner, Cornell pays one-third of the operating deficit and one-third of the capital projects.

H. Steh continued and noted that the out-of-county transit users from Chemung/Schuyler, Tioga and Cortland counties are provided a $20/month subsidy.

J. Ludders talked about safety issues especially noted at East Hill Plaza. Those plus other issues will be discussed at the March meeting when TCAT is in attendance.

This meeting was adjourned at 1:30 PM. The next scheduled TAC meeting is Wednesday, February 27, 2008 in 316 Day Hall (Boardroom) from 12:15 PM until 1:30 PM.