Access meetings Minutes
Members Present: Shelly Brisbin, Randal L. Glock, Scott Meyer, Juan Munoz, Robert Raines.
Members Absent: Jerry Doran
Capital Metro Staff Present: Nancy Crowther, Patty Guajardo, Denise Guerrero, Cindy Hernandez, Jan Johnson.
Guest(s): Julie Maloukis, Christine Guevara, Michael Zitz-Evancih, Rose Marie Cook.
All decisions are voted upon and all votes are unanimous unless stated otherwise.
Meeting was called to order at 5:15PM.
.BUDGET - Cynthia Hernandez (Capital Metro CFO)
The Capital Metro Board of Directors approved the FY 2005 budget on September 29, 2004. Ms. Cynthia Hernandez, Chief Financial Officer at Capital Metro gave a budget update.
Accounting Practices. Capital Metro uses "zero-based" budgeting system. This means that each line item starts at $0. All projected expenses must be justified and every dollar must be accounted for before the expense can be added to the budget. The budget is balanced every fiscal year.
Comment about Rail. No funds have been budgeted in FY 2005 for the issues to be addressed on the November ballot regarding light rail. Therefore, Capital Metro will need to make changes to their budget whether or not the referendum passes. If the rail referendum passes, there will be more money available to work with because Capital Metro will be able to keep the ¼% sales tax income in house and federal funds will likely become available. If the referendum does not pass, they will likely lose the ¼% sales tax and will have to look at other ways to cut costs without reducing services. This may hinder their plans to expand bus service, add rapid express buses, etc.
Summary. Overall revenues are projected at $149.8 million, expenditures are at $124.2 million, leaving a surplus of $25.5 million. Revenues are projected to increase a minimum of 5% this year.
Income.
- Sales Tax. The budget assumes a 5% increase in sales tax income over the current year. (Currently, Capital Metro is experiencing a 7-8% increase over the last year.)
- Fare Boxes. Capital Metro is receiving more revenues from fares with implementation of the new fare boxes on fixed routes. Capital Metro will not accept current bus tickets after December 31, 2004. Customers holding the soon to be obsolete ticket books may exchange them for the new 20 ride cards if they do so prior to December 31, 2004.
- Investments. Investments are projected to earn a 2% return.
- Advertising. Advertising revenues are projected at $60,000.
Expense.
- Fixed Route. The budget for fixed route is driven by hours and miles. No services were cut.
- Fleet. New buses will be added during next fiscal year. There was some discussion about the different types of buses and the terminology.
- Special Transit System. The budget reflects a 3% increase to meet the projected 3% increase in demand for services.
- Facilities. The new STS facility in North Austin and the new Administrative facility at 624 Pleasant Valley will be opening and are expected to improve overall operating efficiency.
- Non Administrative Staff. No increase is budgeted. The union contracts will be up for negotiation in June 2005. It is more expensive to pay overtime wages than to pay additional staff regular wages. Therefore, a decision has been made to hire additional staff rather than to continue to pay overtime wages to current staff.
- Administrative Staff. The budget includes an average increase of about 4% for administrative staff members.
- Employee Health. The budget includes a 15% increase to cover the rising costs of health insurance.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The minutes of the August 4, 2004 ACCESS Advisory Committee Meeting were approved as written.
CITIZEN COMMUNICATION.
- Ms. Rose Marie Cook. Ms. Cook discussed her concerns about paying taxi fares for trips over six miles. Jan Johnson stated that she may have been given incorrect information and agreed to work with her after the meeting.
ALL SYSTEMS GO!
Ms. Patty Guajardo, a member of the Capital Metro Planning Department, presented a very informative update about All Systems Go. Access members asked many questions. One topic of interest was rapid buses. ACCESS would like to get as much information as they can about the buses that would be used as well as the different types of buses that have been discussed (articulating buses, accordion buses, rapid express buses, etc.)
bers are extremely interested in learning more about the buses and would like to tour the buses in order to give input. They want to make sure accessibility issues are addressed and people with disabilities are able to quickly and safely board and debark. Following the discussion, ACCESS members asked Capital Metro staff to provide information on all of the different types of buses.
COMMITTEE REPORTS.
Subcommittee. Juan Munoz, Jan Johnson, and Scott Meyer gave the report.
- committee decided changes to table changes to existing STS policies until the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) System has been in place and well tested for several months.
- Despite the fact that IVR may not be in place for a few months, the STS subcommittee will continue to meet in order to have a well planed itinerary for improving the STS system.
- The committee reviewed numerous paratransit policies of other cites to get ideas as how to help reduce cancellations and no shows. Member favor a tiered penalty system to help reduce no shows. Basically, riders who accumulate 3 no shows/late cancellations in a given month will be subject to suspension of service for one week. Following the suspension, if these riders have 3 or more no shows/late cancellations in a subsequent month, they would be subject to a two week suspension in service, and so forth. Eventually, after three to four months of continued abuse, riders would be subject to a permanent suspension in service.
- The committee would like to change the advanced notice of cancellations from 1-hour to 2-hours.
- committee would like to change the number of days in advance riders could schedule rides from 8 days to perhaps 3 days.
Fixed Route ADA Subcommittee. Randall L. Glock gave the report.
- Randall announced IVR would be available for fixed routes as well.
- A meeting with the Downtown Austin Alliance has tentatively been scheduled for Wednesday, October 20, 2004 from 2:00 until 4:00 p.m. The meeting place will be in the downtown with the exact location TBD. Nancy Crowther will email members once arrangements are finalized. Scott Meyer, Julie Maloukis and Capital Metro Staff, and perhaps others from ACCESS will attend and walk through the downtown area. Members of Downtown Alliance will get first-hand knowledge of issues facing people with disabilities. ACCESS members hope this will help Downtown Alliance members understand why moving public transit buses off of Congress Avenue would be a severe hardship for people with disabilities.
- Shelly Brisbin stated that Roberto Gonzalez attended the meeting and provided a "very brief" presentation about the upcoming December service changes. Although the changes will be relatively minor, she expressed concern about the lack of notice provided to ACCESS members about the fixed route schedule changes. Nancy Crowther said she will work on this issue and make sure ACCESS gets enough notice in the future to be able to report to the Capital Metro Board before changes are approved. Julie Maloukis expressed concern that the specific details were not provided in writing and reinforced the need for staff to provide written information when making presentations to ACCESS.
CHAIR REPORT.
- Ms. Shelly Brisbin announced that 10 applicants were interviewed today for the 4 available ACCESS board positions. Nancy Crowther will contact the selected applicants next week and the new ACCESS board members will start at the November 3 ACCESS meeting. It was suggested that it would be helpful to have a briefing session to bring the newly appointed members up to speed before the November meeting.
- Shelly briefly reported to the Board that ACCESS is concerned about accessibility issues with the proposed All Systems Go plans and stated that ACCESS would like to be heavily involved with citizen committees if the referendum passes.
ANNOUNCEMENTS.
Inaccessible Bus Stop at Hancock Center - Scott Meyer
- Scott Meyer reiterated concerns over the bus stop at Hancock Center (Route#37, #338, #15) at Hancock Shopping Center near St. David's hospital not being accessible for people using wheelchairs. The City of Austin ADA Sidewalk Taskforce may ask for ACCESS to pledge its support of a curb cut at the location. Randall L. Glock and Julie Maloukis stated that they were on it already. They are meeting with Michael Haynes, Director of the St. Davids Wheelchair Fitness Center (located by the bus stop in Hancock Center), to discuss the matter and to determine the status. A previous site visit was made by Julie Maloukis and Nancy Crowther. In addition, Roberto Gonzales and Travis Hausman of Capital Metro have also visited the site to determine engineering needs.
- Scott Meyer announced an incident at the bus stop near the Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center (CCRC). The Center teaches a class in which blind consumers are taught to board and ride Capital Metro buses. On the day in question, the students of the class boarded a bus as usual. Scott stated that the bus driver, who was already running behind schedule, made derogatory remarks to the consumers and failed to direct them to open seats. A Criss Cole staff member reported the incident to Capital Metro Customer Service and made a formal complaint. Scott stated that the initial response from Customer Service was a suggestion that the Center class size be limited to reduce delays in boarding. He added that this was not an acceptable response.
- Nancy Crowther stated that the call had been documented and that she was aware of the situation. She stated that it is never acceptable for bus drivers to make derogatory remarks. However, she said that she supported the suggestion to limit Center class sizes during peak hours. She also suggested that a Capital Metro bus could be made available to the Center for orientation and training. Scott Meyer stated that the Center is servicing so many new consumers that it is not feasible to limit class size. He also said that the class times are set to meet the needs of the consumers.
- Many questions were asked by ACCESS members and Capital Metro staff. They were particularly interested in the class size and the boarding time. Scott said classes typically have from 1 to 6 students but they could have more, and it takes about the same amount of time for all of the students to board and be seated as it does for a typical wheelchair boarding.
- Shelly Brisbin suggested that this should probably be brought up as a discussion topic, but Scott Meyer stated that he really just wanted to make the announcement so Capital Metro Staff would be aware of the situation. Also, he thought it was "pointless to pursue because nothing would be done." Scott Meyer stated that CCRC will not stop doing what it is doing as people who are blind have the right to ride the buses regardless if it takes more time to board.
- Randal Glock and Julie Maloukis pointed out that there was a significant discrepancy in the reports. While Scott stated that the class had about 6-12 students and staff, and that the students boarded and sat down as quickly as they were capable, Nancy Crowther had been informed that about 18 students boarded the bus and toured the entire bus before finding seats, resulting in a considerable time spent boarding.
- Julie Maloukis asked more information about the complaint. Randall Glock noted that this item should be brought up for discussion at the next Fixed Route Subcommittee meeting.
- Scott Meyer announced White Cane Day is Thursday, October 14, 2004. He explained that it is mainly a celebration of blindness, similar to civil rights for the blind. Anyone is welcome to join in the festivities. A white cane parade will begin at 10:00 a.m. at the Congress Avenue Bridge. Marchers will proceed along the sidewalks down Congress Avenue. They will turn left (west) on the north side of 9th Street and proceed to Guadalupe, ending at Woolridge Park.
- There will be music, games and food (limited amount) at the park. Representatives from blind and low vision groups will make speeches and the mayor will read the proclamation. The media will also be present. It should be a great time for all in attendance. If bad weather becomes an issue, call Scott Meyer at 377-0332 after 7:30 am the day of the event and listen to the voice announcement for information.
- November 3, 2004, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
- December 1, 2004, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
Next Subcommittee Meetings:
- October 27, 2004
- STS - 5:00 to 6:00 p.m.
- Fixed Route - 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.
- November 24, 2004
- STS - 5:00 to 6:00 p.m.
- Fixed Route - 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.
Capital Metro and/or the chairperson will communicate any changes to upcoming meetings via e-mail.
Respectfully submitted by
Scott Meyer
Julie Maloukis
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority
2910 East 5th Street | Austin, Texas 78702 | (512) 389-7400
Specific Route Information | (512) 474-1200 | (800) 474-1201
Incident at Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center - Scott Meyer
White Cane Day
Any future agenda items should be submitted to Shelly Brisbin.
Next Access Advisory Committee Meetings:
- Ms. Rose Marie Cook. Ms. Cook discussed her concerns about paying taxi fares for trips over six miles. Jan Johnson stated that she may have been given incorrect information and agreed to work with her after the meeting.