Strategy Description:

The focus of the public transit enhancement strategy is to extend and enhance public transit service so it becomes a more viable alternative to the private vehicle for work/shopping trips throughout the region. Long-range solutions could include a community-airport people mover system.

Key Components:

• Coordinate transit planning with efforts to define growth areas and more effectively manage the impacts of growth by including transit interests on the growth area committees. The presence of transit should be one indicator considered in determining the location of growth areas. Planning to place growth (and higher densities) within reach of existing bus routes and planned extensions of current transit should be a priority for the wise use of infrastructure dollars and to increase transit ridership. During the planning process, consideration should be given to the preservation of right-of-way and easements for transit as well as roadways.

• Develop a regional approach to improve cost-efficiency and funding of public transit. Currently the funding of transit is complex and comes from multiple sources (information provided by Hugh Mose, CATA General Manager):

• Fares, sale of passes and tokens, and purchase-of-service agreements. Payments by individual riders or entities who pre-pay so their constituents can ride fare-free account for almost 50% of our operating budget. Purchase-of-service agreements include two main categories - apartment complex contracts ($520,000) and Penn State ($1.1 million). The apartment contracts support approximately half of the Centre Line (non-campus) riders. The arrangement with Penn State allows anyone to ride the LOOP/LINK to ride fare-free - currently over 20,000 daily during the school year.

• State Transit Assistance. Roughly 25 percent of the budget comes from the state. There are three separate programs, each with its own regulations. The amount CATA receives is based on sales tax proceeds and the state’s general fund budget, operating through a set of formulas, which are largely fixed. There is, however, a small portion of the funding that is allocated based on the amount of service provided (miles operated) and the amount of service consumed (riders carried).

• Federal Transit Assistance. Federal operating assistance is formula driven, CATA’s allocation is based on the amount appropriated each year by Congress, which is then run through a formula based on the population and population density of the service area. These dollars are used as funding of last resort. The federal dollars are always spent last, because they can be carried forward from year to year and used for capital. Last year federal funds represented about 20 percent of the operating budget.

• Local Share. The state and federal programs each require local matching funds. Because CATA does not have the power to levy taxes and is not a creature of the county, the local share is provided by served municipalities, as well as the University. Currently the bare minimum is requested to access all of the state and federal funds to which CATA is entitled. The required local match is about 5 percent of the budget.

• Public-private Partnerships. In several instances in the past private for-profit and non-profit entities have desired additional transit service that the townships were not willing to support. The solution was for the entity to pay CATA directly. Over the years this approach has been supplanted by one in which the participants pay their respective townships, who then use the money to reduce the burden on their local taxpayers. Currently these arrangements exist with Nittany Mall, Tussey Mountain, MBNA, and others.

• Consider financial and density incentives for new projects developed along transit routes.
• Strategically locate all park-and-ride lots and encourage new park-and-ride lots to link with express bus service via I-99 in planning for future lots and at the interchanges.
• Use cooperative planning between adjacent municipalities to enhance transit ridership and create efficient transit routes and safe and aesthetic bus stops/shelters along transit oriented corridors.
• Manage the transit system in a cost efficient manner to ensure that the service is available to those who need it most, those who need transit to get to and from work or school. Do not extend transit to low density rural areas as a subsidy operation unless future growth will warrant such service.
• Apply the latest technologies such as bus operation pre-emption of signals and bus lanes for improving bus travel times along major arterial highways during peak hour periods.
• Enhance university-community decision making to encourage transit ridership through carefully integrated planning of new and redevelopment projects.
• Consider a long-term people mover system and other innovative transit ideas.
• Encourage transit routes, which link with bicycle paths and facilitate bicycles being transported on buses.

Approval of new development beyond existing transit routes and reasonable future extensions of these transit routes needs to be carefully evaluated. Lower density suburban sprawl is not easily served by transit service so regional type land use decisions need to be made by suburban and rural municipalities.

Implementation:

• Incorporate transit planning into 20-year (and 50-year conceptual planning) land use and transportation planning process and evaluate the need for higher densities in corridors served by park-and-ride lots and bus transit.

• Evaluate/implement new technology, which will make corridor transit services more cost efficient in the future.

• Develop and distribute throughout the region information regarding both existing and future plans for transit, park-and-ride lots, and transfer centers to ensure that municipal officials better understand the global role of public transit and the cost to extend service to rural areas.

• Number of transit riders
• Cost of transit per rider
• Number of park and ride lots
• Space utilization at park and ride lots
• Number of other transit alternatives, in addition to buses

Funding was described previously in the strategy. Future transit funding is expected to come from a variety of sources.