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Park-and-ride plan: TAC hears data gaps, bikeshare and municipal facility suggestions
Summary
Consultant RSG presented a Regional Park & Ride Plan showing lower occupancy since COVID; TAC members urged improved bike access, consideration of municipal facilities, and more data on bus travel times and occupancy. The plan is slated for completion by the end of July.
Consultant Jonathan Slason of RSG presented an update on the Regional Park & Ride Plan to the TAC on June 7, describing the project vision, facility inventory and a methodology to prioritize future locations.
Slason said the inventory and occupancy analysis show a decline in park-and-ride use during COVID and that transit ridership decline correlates with lower facility occupancy. He noted gaps in available data for some facilities outside county boundaries and said the implementation approach will emphasize screening and prioritizing candidate sites.
Members suggested several refinements. Jonathon Weber (Local Motion) recommended that park-and-ride locations closer to Burlington evaluate adding bikeshare stations and higher-quality bicycle connections; he also asked for bicycle level-of-traffic-stress targets for access routes. Chris Damiani (Green Mountain Transit) said two of the biggest factors for park-and-ride use are bus frequency and comparative travel time of bus versus car, and said GMT can look into available travel-time tracking.
Deirdre Holmes asked how demand for a facility that does not yet exist could be measured; Slason said employment and origin-destination patterns from census and employment data can provide a starting point for estimating demand. CATMA (Sandy Thibault) said CATMA’s fall survey could include questions to better understand willingness to carpool or share vehicles.
The TAC gave consensus on the team’s direction. Slason said the project is slated to be completed by the end of July; staff will continue to seek additional data points (occupancy, travel time) to strengthen the plan’s prioritization and implementation steps.
