For years Rochester and Olmsted County have been developing a bicycle masterplan.
Many meetings and opportunities for feedback have finally resulted in a plan that the city council got to review. For this to be implemented we will need your advocacy and support at the Rochester City Council and Olmsted County Board meetings. Even after we get these plans adopted we need to make sure that they are not ignored. There is so many good recommendations here that I encourage you to take the time to read this, write down your thoughts, and make sure your elected leaders vote to adopt and follow the plan.
To make this plan a reality we will need to spend about 2.5% of our transportation funding on this system. This SHOULD be an easy sell given the fact that:
12% of all trips in Minnesota are by walking or bike (higher in places like Rochester)
biking receives about 1.5% of federal funding
results in more than 9% of all traffic fatalities in Minnesota
the industry represents has more than 1500 jobs in MN
the industry contributes $145 million annually to the MN economy
And just in case you hear this nugget:
According to County Planner Phil Wheeler’s presentation to the city council, only 1.8% of transportation funding comes from the gas tax. So don’t buy that tired talking point. Biking is far more cost effective for taxpayers than more and bigger roads.
I assure you that it is not cheap shoddy housing like we see in places like 22nd Avenue in Cimarron Court in Northwest Rochester. That as it turns out is very expensive housing, just ask our law enforcement agencies. (And yes, I realize some good people live there, I have met them.) In order to better understand what affordable housing is we must define it. I have said many times that cheap housing is never affordable housing. In order to consider the total costs of home ownership, I propose we look at a HEAT Index.
If city government performs at its potential we will see a radically different transit system in Rochester in the next 5 to 10 years. Technology, congestion, growth, and demographics are combining to create a new Rochester that we must adapt to. If we are successful we will have a far more efficient, effective, and far reaching transit system. Pedestrian, Bicycle, Park & Ride, Development, and Transit will merge into one seamless entity to the benefit of our citizens. Read the rest of this entry »
Today the city council unanimously voted (6-0 with Hanson absent) to approve the independent recommendation to select First Transit to operate Rochester’s transit system. There were four companies competing, but everyone was interested in whether First Transit or stick with Rochester City Lines.
If we are going to be a serious player for businesses we must be fair to those that wish to compete here. After a fair process, we had an impartial recommendation that stated that First Transit was the best of 4 choices (all capable) while Rochester City Lines came in last. First transit also cost $2 million less over 54 months based on operating 70,000 hours per year. To look at these facts and chose anything but First Transit would be cronyism at its worst. I asked questions about the process and found it to be exceedingly fair. RCL questioned if the request for proposals was fair, but the example that they raised about experience with new technologies, was actually something that I strongly think is needed.
We also secured an understanding with First Transit that they would recognize the existing ATU organization and would be offering positions to existing employees first. If we lowered our costs by pushing working families into poverty we accomplish nothing. I have already told these workers, that I will continue to have their backs. I respect how good these drivers are.
Dan Holter continues to threaten to run a parallel transit system that he implies will cause harm to the city’s system. That kind of entitled behavior leaves me shaking my head. That said, if he can run a successful system that will only help transit in Rochester, but to do so he will have to follow rules pertaining to franchises.
There is no love lost between me and Dan Holter, given his lobbying antics, belief that he is “entitled” to a profit, and his holding us hostage for that profit. But we lose credibility as a city if we don’t have a fair process to choose our venders. We did have a fair process, and made a decision based on facts. We did not make any sort of decision based on spite or revenge.
This should have no negative impact on Dan Holter’s business since in a statement to the city council he stated hasn’t made any profit in 44 years…
It will be interesting how long the wasteful lawsuits continue. We will see tremendous improvements in transit between now and 2016. We are going to see better access, faster service, and more hours, and we can best achieve this by working with the best.
As many of you know I have a background in business finance and am particularly interested in finance issues. You are also probably aware that the City of Rochester was directed by the FTA to have competitive bids to run OUR transit system (I refer to it as ours since we own the buses, streets, shelters, set the fares and routes, and have paid for most of everything for decades…). You probably also know that I believe that we should have bid this competitively even if we weren’t required to. Here are the financial results in 3 charts. If you look at these 3 charts, I think you can see why competitive bidding is good for the city.
For a decade we saw double digit growth in expenses compared to less than 5% population growth + inflation. The bid resulted in growth rates that are far better. FT = First Transit
Edit: Today I asked staff about this and part of what we need to look at is revenue hours for each year. Staff is getting me that information and I will update.
Here are total expenses per the bids vs. what would happen if RCL had continued to grow at the same rate as the past 10 years.
Edit 2: The jump in 2012 is due to an adjustment in revenue hours (I think). I will confirm.
Edit 3: I will update this chart to adjust for revenue hours when available.
Also today a judge threw out Holter’s request for a temporary restraining order. He must have been as unimpressed with Holter fantasy ownership as everyone else.
I have no idea what Dan is talking about. We own the buses, shelters, and infrastructure. I can only assume that Dan thinks the transit system means the gum under the seat.
I met with two of Dan’s senior staffers a few weeks back (shortly after Dan held the public hostage for a $110,000 shakedown). In talking with them even they realized that RCL didn’t own the system and they couldn’t defend the lack of competition. A constituent joked to me that Dan’s fighting to maintain his government sanctioned competition free contract would make him a great leader of the old Soviet Communist Party. Read the rest of this entry »
I asked Transit Manager (and incredibly nice guy) Tony Knauer for a timeline of our contract negotiates where the city was held hostage and forced into a bad contract. I voted against the contract with Mark Bilderback but I do not fault the 4 that voted in favor because the felt they had to.
While RCL claims that they have never made a profit, that is hidden by generous salaries, sharing allocated overhead, and above market rate rental fees.
-Rochester City Lines (RCL) General Manager Dan Holter
A business works smart and works hard to earn a profit.
Business owner Michael Wojcik
Notice a difference.
At the special meeting on December 22, 2011 the city council met to pay Dan Holter his $140,000 in taxpayer ransom. The city approved a horrible 6 month contract by a 4-2 margin. Everyone on the city council was disgusted by the contract and looked forward to awarding a new contract through open competition beginning July 1, 2012. In addition, the taxpayers of Rochester will be funding a 3% across the board increase for RCL (our staff is getting 1% increases). To the extent that is legally permissible we will consider this experience in evaluating RCL for future competitive contracts.
As much as Dan Holter is to blame for this fiasco I place a similar amount of blame on city staff for allowing us to be in a situation where a majority of the council felt we had no choice but to give into Holter’s demands. The question is why we had not negotiated with another company so as to have some leverage with RCL. A review of the entire process and transit operations is probably in order.
After the meeting Holter was stopped from making some statements by his own staff. I wasn’t there, but others were. I wish he had gone on. He also wanted to blame me for some of this and claims that I have been non-responsive. I did meet with Holter and other took his concerns back to transit staff. The problem has always been that he tends to make these silly statements like he owns the transit system. The taxpayers own the buses, streets, bus stops. RCL owns the RCL name and the garage where some buses are currently stored. We waste a bunch of staff time to debunk these statements time and time again. It was also suggested that the service would have continued to operate regardless if we had approved the contract. We were not made aware of this.
My advice to a bus driver at RCL that I spoke with after the meeting is that you further organize and perhaps make your own bid for the contract beginning in July as an employee owned bus company. I hate to see innocent victims to another’s greed.
1) Dennis Weestrand is still willing to profit from a business dealing in Human Sex Trafficking in Rochester. Here are my official city council meeting comments.
2) Our bus contract will be put out for competitive bidding. This is long overdue. At the council meeting there was an attempt to pander and say that the big bad federal government is making us do this. However after the pandering died down I specifically said that we should have competition for our contracts and if anyone on the council disagrees, please say so now. No one spoke, so I read that 7-0 that the city council support competitive bidding. This is not to say anything about our current operator, who I think does a very nice job. I am championing a change rates where we will pay an hourly rate instead of the current death-by-excel back and forth that kills so much staff time.
