Climate-friendly transit, ensuring rider safety, convenience and affordability among key concerns mentioned by candidates
By Debora Gordon for Ashland.news
Three candidates are on the ballot for Position 1 on the Rogue Valley Transportation District board. Only one candidate is running for each of the other two director seats, both incumbents: William Mansfield for Position 2 and Tonia Morro for Position 3. There are seven members on the full board, each serving four-year terms.
RVTD operates a revenue fleet of 40 buses, including 27 powered by clean-burning compressed natural gas, serving a fixed-route system that runs about 300-miles through seven communities.
Tuesday, May 16, is the last day to drop off or mail completed ballots. Interviews with candidates for Position 1 appear here in alphabetical order.
Denise Krause
Denise Krause’s priorities for the post of Rogue Valley Transportation District Director, Position 1, are to increase ridership by launching public awareness campaigns about the benefits of taking public transit and how by increasing ridership service can be expanded.
The Ashland resident describes her plans as “to expand the Ashland Connector and introduce other on-demand shuttle services, add Sunday and evening service and assess the level of interest in our district of having a commuter train that connects our communities and runs from Ashland to Grants Pass, using existing tracks and having stops in Ashland, Talent, Phoenix, Medford, Central Point, Gold Hill, Rogue River and Grants Pass. We could then expand bus services in the municipalities.”
Krause has retired from a 25-year career in healthcare, noting, “I am at a point in my life where I have time and feel like I can be of service.” She recently took the transportation leadership training program hosted by Rogue Action Center, and she also took the 30-hour Master Climate Protector course presented by SOCAN (Southern Oregon Climate Action Now).
“In the transportation leadership course,” Krause said, “(I) got really interested in the potential here in the Rogue Valley, to start to understand the complexities of the whole transportation system from local level to the state and federal levels. … I want to be sure that we increase ridership. I’m interested in buses, shuttles, as clean as possible, as soon as possible. … To move into the next technology of electric, as soon as it’s feasible. If we did this commuter train, we could expand our services in each other towns.”
“The thing about electric vehicles is that the numbers are growing,” she said. “It’s going to get better, and we need to be forward thinking, we need to be really staying on top, and being proactive, and have a strategy to make it happen.”
Beyond the vehicles, she also wants to expand options for employment. “Another thing I would want to do,” Krause said,” is address the staff shortages which have been happening all over since COVID, which is not uncommon, but RVTD has a staffing shortage, so I would like to work with Rogue Community College to be able to develop a labor pipeline, a training program, that would develop staff to help RTVD with our labor shortages so that as we increase ridership we can expand services and not be stuck on the labor shortage issue.”
“As we think about transportation in the future,” Krause said, “we need to be walkable, more bikeable, connecting to other services, but it needs to be thought of as more of a whole, instead of all these little pieces in isolation, more of a vision and think about how we’re going to be move in that direction. We can’t just take care of today.”
John Quinn
John Quinn, who lives in Medford, is running for Rogue Valley Sewer Services District Director as well as Rogue Valley Transportation District Director Position 1. He notes that, should he be elected to both, “they meet on different days.”
“We’re having a problem with not enough ridership,” Quinn says of RVTD’s current status. “I really want to do what I can to motivate people to use it. It’s actually nicely used in Ashland.”
As a deputy district attorney for Siskiyou County since 2001, Quinn notes that “What interests me about transportation is that it’s one of the really excellent public resources we have here in this region, and I want to do my best to preserve it and I want to contribute what I can with my particular background to help it remain viable and a resource for our people.”
“What I noticed, is if you look at the funding for RVTD, the last budget they published indicated about $45 million, if you include Valley Lift and Translink, for the year,” Quinn said. “The amount of money we’re getting from fares, though, is 3.7%, about $1.5 million of the $45 million. The rest is funded by property tax and tax money. We’ve got a lot of people paying for it either through their property taxes or through other taxes and those people are paying for but really aren’t using it and generating fares, so I think about why.
“I actually looked at a study that RVTD did itself, which was actually pretty impressive, and what they found was that among the concerns that are keeping people off the buses was that they don’t feel safe.”
Quinn explains, “No one should do crimes on the bus. … As a (district attorney), I’m in a position to help to address the idea that people’s perception that the buses aren’t safe, which may be keeping a lot of people off them — and is keeping people off them, according to RVTD’s own report.”
“My proposals would first be,” he adds, “that we have to have absolute zero tolerance for any criminal activity on the buses. Everyone should be allowed to ride the bus as long as they treat each other with respect. But there should also be 100% acceptance for everyone who wants to take advantage of the bus.”
“I’ve done a lot of a living, I’ve seen life from a lot of perspectives,” Quinn said, “and I think it gives me an added ability; to reach out to the people who want to ride the bus, both the ones who don’t feel safe and the ones don’t have a choice and who have to ride for monetary reasons, because I’ve really been both and I get it. Honestly, it’s a wonderful resource.”
Jim Snyder
Jim Snyder, a resident of Phoenix, is running for Jackson County Rural Fire Protection District 5 Director Position 2 and Rogue Valley Sewer Services Director, as well as for Rogue Valley Transportation District Director, Position 1.
Snyder traces his interest in transportation back to his childhood. “I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii,” he explains. “I used the public transportation system all my life, until I graduated from college and went away. I have a first-hand appreciation for a well-laid out transportation system, supporting citizens of all ages in a large and expansive community. I’m also interested on the green side, the environment.”
His recommendations to residents of the Rogue Valley are “to utilize bus transportation networks wherever and whenever possible, but only if in doing so it fits their personal schedule,” also noting that “much depends on how accessible —nearby and affordable — public transit is for any individual.”
“What I would like to be able to do is look at where the network terminals are and the support and how they impact the time/distance factors,” Snyder said. “For example, I live here in Phoenix, the bus goes right by on 99, but there are people who would have to walk multiple blocks to a bus station, in the middle of rain or snow or sleet, which may make it inconvenient.” He asks, “where can we expand the network? One of the things I want to make sure, in the longer term, that we’re on the cutting edge of technology for 20, 30, 50 years from now, to make sure we’re using the best possible vehicle and all the training that has to go into that, too.
“My impression is that the system itself functions well in terms of the movement of people. I would say that since the busses are running well, on time, the backup systems must be working.”
To expand the effectiveness and accessibility of public transport in the Rogue Valley, Snyder suggests, “the right thing to do is to go back and make sure we’re up to date on networking on, where people live , where they’re going to work or shop. That’s the most important thing, map the transit system to the actual users.”
“One of the things I want to make sure of is that we have a safe environment for the riders,” Snyder added. “I want to see what kind of training programs and policy programs they have inside of RVTD. I also want to make sure there are consumer price-friendly fares.
“I want to take care of the people we have here, I just want to make sure we stay on the cutting edge, to provide those kind of services better in the future.”
Debora Gordon is a writer, artist, educator and non-violence activist who recently moved to Ashland from Oakland, California. Email Ashland.news Executive Editor Bert Etling at [email protected] or call or text him at 541-631-1313.
