LTD Board hears Transit Tomorrow question from 2019 one year later
3 min read
LTD Board Member Josh Skov: “I’m Joshua Skov. I’m the representative for Subdistrict 5… I’ve heard from more than 50 of you. Actually, raise your hand if you’ve sent me an email. Right, thank you. Raise your hand if you’ve actually gotten an email back from me. OK, almost everybody. I’m still getting to those. As I said, I’ve gotten quite a few.”
That was LTD Board member Josh Skov at a neighborhood meeting in November 2019. One year later, some neighborhood residents are still waiting for that email response.
Lucy Bambrey: My name is Lucy Bambrey.
Linda Duggan: My name is Linda Duggan.
Lucy and Linda spoke at the November 2020 LTD Board meeting.
Lucy Bambrey: It is November 2020 and it has been one year since we learned about Transit Tomorrow at the annual Southeast Neighbors general meeting. In November 2019, we asked the LTD board members at that meeting a very simple question about Transit Tomorrow. One year later, we are still waiting for that answer, so we will ask it again. How and why did the board decide that the results of a flawed survey, showing a 41-36 percent preference for frequency over coverage, should be interpreted as meaning the public wanted LTD to allocate a whopping 82 percent of its resources to frequency and just 18 percent to coverage?
Thank you for supporting
local citizen journalism
Linda Duggan: The public survey results, 41 to 36 percent, are so close that the report had to make a point of saying that this difference was statistically significant.
Again, LTD Board member Josh Skov in November 2019.
Josh Skov: Three very quick points about the whole Transit Tomorrow process, and try to hold, if you can, hold all of these in your head at once, because I think this is, it’s complicated. The first is, I’m 100 percent behind this process, as you’ve heard described… Second, we will not get it right the first time. So there will undoubtedly be changes based on the feedback that we hear from you and others… And then, third, to the extent that you can give feedback, of course we want to hear from you and your specific experiences but whenever you can, if you can provide comments in the context of that overall redesign, if you can point out the places where you think we should be doing tradeoffs differently.”
One year later, Lucy Bambrey spoke at the LTD board meeting.
Lucy Bambrey: In November 2019 we asked the board, if the public comment indicated a five percent difference, why didn’t LTD use that five percent difference to allocate the mix of resources? Why, in November 2019, did LTD present our neighborhood with an 82-18 percent mix? The overall findings also showed that transit-dependent and disabled actually favored coverage over frequency. Why did the board ignore their feedback?
Noting that the LTD board did not respond to its emailed question, the Southeast Neighbors Transportation Committee is now asking LTD for copies of all 50 email messages sent to board member Josh Skov.
The SEN Transportation Committee is also encouraging interested residents to apply for the City’s Active Transportation Committee.
The committee is also looking to add safety measures on East and West Amazon and near Edgewood Elementary School.
For more information about the Lane Transit District, please see https://ltd.org.
