Comm. Jeanne Nicholson's letter to the editor

2/23/2006 - I love the idea of public transportation. With public transportation comes the possibility of reducing: 1) demand on natural resources like fossil fuels; 2) traffic; 3) wear and tear on highways; 4) parking challenges; 5) poor air quality; and 6) highway related deaths and injuries.

  In Gilpin County, I can imagine teenagers who want to stay after school for a play practice or an athletic practice using public transportation to get home long after the school buses run. I can imagine a teenager who is too young to drive and/or doesn't have a car using public transportation to go to the Community Center to play basketball with friends. I can imagine a senior citizen who is no longer confident to drive using the public transportation to get a haircut. I can imagine a parent using the public transportation to take their child to a clinic appointment at the Mountain Family Health Center because their working spouse took their only family transportation to work. I can imagine a commuter to the Denver or Boulder area using the new system to connect to RTD especially on a snowy day and/or to save money now that fuel is so expensive and parking is such a nightmare in the city. I can imagine someone parking their car at the Community Center and taking the public transportation the rest of the way to their destination. Even people who do drive and have a car might benefit from public transportation.

  There are many reasons why Gilpin County might benefit from public transportation. For those reasons, I was encouraged when the Black Hawk Transportation Authority asked the Board of County Commissioners if there was interest in pursuing a public transportation plan for Gilpin County. During the first phase in the discussions, the written and spoken plan was to provide hourly transport from 7 AM to 7 PM daily from Rollinsville (maybe even Nederland) to the Gold Mountain Village above Central City.

  I imagined stops at Russell Gulch, Gold Mountain Village, Central City, Black Hawk, the Gilpin RE-1 School, Justice Center, Community Center, Gilpin Library, Pete's Beaver Park Inn, the Nederland Jr. Sr. High and the RTD stop in Nederland. I even thought we should consider expanding to the closest RTD connection to the south end of Gilpin County. I saw most of the stops as within reasonable walking distance from people's homes for a large part of the population and "park and ride" spots for people who wanted to drive to the stop and then get on the bus. For example, the library might or might not be the destination. It might be the best pick up and drop off point for someone who lives in Colorado Sierra subdivision even if the library was closed because they could walk to the library parking lot, get on the bus and go to the clinic.

  Unfortunately, the plan changed. After a great deal of work and effort on the part of Philo Shelton, the Black Hawk Transportation Authority proposed a more limited plan to the County. The more limited plan included only stopping at the Justice Center, Gilpin School, and the Community Center in unincorporated Gilpin County. In Central City, the new plan proposed stopping at Gold Mountain Village.

  By implementing the new plan, a senior citizen that lives at the north end of Gilpin County could not use the public transportation system. How would teenagers too young to drive who live in the Bun Gun subdivision or Rollinsville get to the Community Center if a parent was not available to drive them? Why would it be fair to use Gilpin County funds to provide a service at the south end of the county and not the north end of the county? The population is almost equally divided between the north and south end of the county, so why would the ridership of county residents be smaller at the north end and therefore public transportation not justified?

  The county commissioners were told the change in the plan was necessary because there was poor radio reception along 119 north of the Justice Center. The bus drivers, if their bus broke down, would not be able to call for help. I called the Sheriff's office and was told by Christian Martin, the radio expert, that Gilpin county's radio reception is excellent along all of Highway 119.

  We were told studies had not been done regarding ridership at the north end so they were not sure if the north end service was justified. Actually a study of sorts was done of the entire county using assumptions from transportation studies in other similar communities. No surveys have been done for any part of the County. Why would we assume the residents would use public transportation at the south end but not the north end? Perhaps the assumption by the Transportation Authority is that the ridership they need to rely on is not residents but gaming tourists.

  We were told the Black Hawk Transportation Authority might consider expanding the service beyond the Justice Center and Community Center at a later date. However, the Authority was not willing to allow the county to have voting rights on the Black Hawk Transportation Authority even though Gilpin County would be contributing money to fund the expanded service. The County would have no authority over where the bus went, where stops were, when the bus provided service, and how the overall service was managed.

  In the end, the proposal appeared to be headed toward a bad marriage. The Black Hawk Transportation Authority does an excellent job of providing public transportation for the Black Hawk and Central City areas of the county, but may not be motivated to provide a full service to the northern and southern parts of the County. If we shared the same values, we could have taken advantage of the economy of scale by sharing a transportation system, but our interests are different (not necessarily better but certainly different).

  Gilpin County needs to create a separate public transportation system for the rest of Gilpin County. We do not have enough people to assume the service will pay for itself. The public transportation system can generate some funds by charging a fee to ride the bus and the County can apply for federal public transportation grant funds to help pay for the service. The County can explore all of the options to determine the most efficient way to provide public transportation including: 1) contracting with a private company; 2) collaborating with Clear Creek County; or 3) buying our own bus and hiring bus drivers. In addition, the community will have to agree that a subsidized public transportation service is a good use of some of the money the County receives from the gaming industry's adjusted gross proceeds tax.

Jeanne Nicholson
Gilpin County Commissioner