Agenda - Council Work Session - 01/12/2010

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The selcond factor has to do with our actual Northstar experience. Once we have some operating experience with Northstar, we will be updating our model to reflect act11al ridership numbers. We expect to complete this modification as early as 2011, which may benefit Ramsey's ridership numbet's. This approach was done after the startup of Hiawatha and had a significant impact on the ridership estimates now being used for Central Corridor. Adequate parking is another prerequisite to getting a rail station. While building out the 200 CMAQ parking spaces could help, the City would seem to have several options regarding parking: 1. In anticipation of attracting a new business to Ramsey Town Center that would use all 590 structured parking spaces currently available, the City could elect to build 200 additional spaces for transit with the current CMAQ capital grant. 2, The City could request that TAB extend the sunset date of the current CMAQ capital grant to March 31,2011, or to swap the year of implementation with another project presently programmed for 2011 01' later (assuming such a project can be identified) and allow time for both ridership market and better estimates to be developed. 3. The City could return the CMAQ ftll1ds, and re-apply once ridership market and better estimates have been developed. 4. The City could return CMAQ funds, and designate an appropriate portion of the existing parking facility to transit or commuter rail use. If the remaining available parking capacity does 110t meet a prospective business developer's needs, the developer could be required by the City to provide the appropriate parking, as is common practice. " If the City elects to use the current CMAQ funds to build 200 parking spaces, one of two actions needs to happen: (1) Build spaces as identified in the CMAQ grant for the purpose of bus service, and continue operating a bus route until a commuter rail station is constructed and rail service replaces the bus service, or (2) request a "scope change" and a TIP amendment from TAB to designate these spaces for commuter rail customers rather than bus, as was identified in the application. Because the CMAQ benefit is realized through transit service to a CMAQ-funded facility, the assurance and timing of commuter rail service stalt-up may be a factor in TAB's analysis. The City has also raised questions about continuation of the bus service. More specifically, we've been asked how continuing or terminating the bus service would impact the ridership analysis for a rail station. Unfortunately, it is unc1eal' whether continuing the Route 856 bus service will enhance or diminish the modeled ridership for a Ramsey Commuter Rail Station, Some ofthe key factors that influence the model are transit t1'avel time, frequency, fare and mode (rail vs. bus). Route 856 takes 40 minutes to travel non- stop between Ramsey and downtown. N01thstar commuter rail would potentially take the same time. A lower fare on the bus would make the bus more attractive than commuter rail, but the commuter rail mode and higher number of trips would improve the Northstar attractiveness. Actual transit ridership is also a faetol' in future forecasts. If actual ridership is higher than previously mo~eled, this factor will favor a higher number of transit riders forecast for the corridor. Lower actuall'idership would have the opposite effect. Continuing 01' terminating the bus service is the City's decision. Ridership modeling is complicated and we invite interested staff for a technical discussion on how ridership on this bus route would be factored in the long term ridership forecast. 2