Tuesday, July 17, 2007

PRESCOTT - Reversing more than a decade of ambivalence about public transit, the Prescott City Council took a firm stand this week in favor of a fixed-route bus system.

During a Tuesday workshop on public transit, all seven of the council members expressed support for pursuing a system that would link Prescott, Prescott Valley and Chino Valley by bus.

That represents a turn-around from previous city actions, which have shied away from a public bus system.

Dave Quinn of the Northern Arizona Interfaith Council referred to that when he made a pitch for a five-bus system that would include routes between Prescott and Prescott Valley.

“Over the last 16 years, there have been seven studies ... (all of which) have made the case for the need for public transit,” Quinn said. He emphasized the 2004 Prescott General Plan, in which he said, “You pledged leadership on public transit. What we want is what you promised.”

Although concerns arose about finances, council members agreed that the city should start with a relatively small fixed-route system, and grow from there.

“I firmly believe we need to walk before we run,” Councilman Bob Bell said, voicing support for a “limited service fixed-route” system that would include Prescott, Prescott Valley and Chino Valley.

While acknowledging that a regional, fixed-route system was not the first choice for either Prescott Valley or Chino Valley, Bell said he believed they were “waiting for Prescott to take the lead.”

Earlier this summer, the councils in Prescott Valley, Chino Valley, and Dewey-Humboldt, as well as the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors, all reviewed the recently completed Regional Transit Needs Study, which suggested four possible transit alternatives.

Recommendations from those entities were a mixed bag. While Yavapai County favored a “full-service” fixed-route bus system that would involve routes between all four of the area communities, the Prescott Valley Town Council reportedly focused its attention on transit needs within the town, while also expressing interest in exploration of a regional system.

Both the Chino Valley Town Council and the Dewey-Humboldt Town Council supported continuation and enhancement of the existing voucher transit system, which provides subsidized, low-cost taxi rides to needy people.

Before reaching its consensus, the Prescott City Council heard plenty of support for a bus system. The workshop attracted about 60 people, and more than a dozen spoke to the council.

Fritzi Mevis of People Who Care, a non-profit organization that helps homebound adults to stay in their homes longer, spoke of the daily transportation needs she encounters.

Referring to the suggestion by one speaker that the community should organize carpools and volunteer drivers as a means of providing transportation, Mevis said, “We’re past that. That was 10 years ago in Prescott. I’m here to tell you we cannot meet the need.”

And Lindsay Bell, a long time community transit advocate, urged the council to “give a strong message” to the Central Yavapai Metropolitan Planning Organization, which oversaw the transit study, on the need for fixed-route system.

She suggested that the city endorse the study’s “limited service” alternative that included routes between Prescott and Prescott Valley, with a slight modification that would take in Chino Valley as well.

Council members agreed, maintaining that a regional approach would be crucial to the success of a transit system.

Noting that the issue “has been batted around for years and years and years,” Mayor Rowle Simmons assured the crowd, “The intent and the will is here to act, and you’re going to see action.”

Along with its choice of a fixed-route system, the council also recommended that CYMPO administer the program, and that the money for the system should come from existing sources in the early years of the program, with efforts starting immediately to find an additional revenue source to pay for future expansions of the system.

The city’s recommendation will now go on to CYMPO, which will compile it with the views it has already received from other area governments on transit.

The study recommended that the transit system begin in 2009.