STAFF REPORT
DATE
: February 14, 2023
TO: J
ustin Hess, City Manager
FR
OM: Patrick Prescott, Community Development Director
VIA: David Kriske, Assistant Community Development Director BY: Karen B. Pan, Transportation Services Manager
SUBJ
ECT: Approval to Amend the Transit Operational and Maintenance Agreement with MV Public Transportation, Inc., Service Changes to the BurbankBus NoHo Media District (Green) Route, and Amend the Fiscal Year Budget 2022-23 Budget
RECO
MMENDATION
1. Approve Amendment No. 1 to the Transit Operational and Maintenance Agreement with MV Public Transportation, Inc. (Attachment 1);
2. Approve service changes to the BurbankBus NoHo Media District (Green) Route in line with the City’s adopted BurbankBus Fixed Route Service Policies; and
3. Amend the Fiscal Year 2022-23 Budget by appropriating $110,000 Prop C funds.
BACKGRO
UND
In 2018, t he City completed a Comprehensive Operations Analysis (COA) of the BurbankBus Fixed Route and Senior and Disabled Transit. The COA resulted in several recommended service changes to the BurbankBus Fixed Route and led to the Transportation Commission recommending a set of four BurbankBus Fixed- Route Service Policies which were adopted by the Council in 2019. Additionally, t he Council directed staff to evaluate the Green Route for conformance to the Service Policies . This staff report provides details of staff’s assessment of the Green Route and also the proposed changes to the City’s BurbankBus operators’ agreement with MV Public Transportation, Inc.
The B
urbankBus Green Route connects the North Hollywood Red Line / Orange Line Station with west Magnolia Park, the Burbank Media District, and the lower Buena Vista
COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT
ATTACHMENT 5
ATTACHMENT 5 - 1
Street corridor via a fixed-route service that operates during peak AM and PM commute periods, Monday through Friday. The Service operates bi -directionally between North Hollywood and Hollywood Way along Magnolia Boulevard, and then circulates in a counter-clockwise loop via Hollywood Way, Olive Avenue, Alameda Avenue, and Buena Vista Street (Attachment 3).
Bet
ween July 2021 and June 2022, the total BurbankBus fixed route system ridership count was 145,580 rides. Prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic (Pandemic), the ridership per year was 213,000 rides . The Green Route carried about 1,960 passengers per month between July 2021 and June 2022, or about 23,500 per year , but in December 2022 carried less than 1,000 rides. The Green Route is currently the poorest performing route in the system and carries the fewest riders.
DIS
CUSSION
BurbankBus Transit Service Policies
To improve the success of BurbankBus ’ fixed-route services, Council adopted a set of four service policies in 2019:
1. Se
rvice should be frequent. Transit service is most successful when it is frequent. Frequent service improves reliability and does not require riders to consult with a fixed schedule when catching a bus or making a connection because buses come often enough that wait times are mini mized. B uses on all routes should arrive at least every 15 minutes during peak periods.
2. Service should operate all-day. BurbankBus services previously operated only during peak commute periods and did not operate in the midday or later evening.
However, all-day service is necessary to improve reliability, to serve those who don’t travel during traditional commute periods, and to better serve residents and non-commute trips. Currently, the Green Route is the only route that does not run all day.
3. Service should be point-to-point. Transit services should operate directly from point-to-point, should connect to major trip generators, and should have a major transfer point at each end point. Point -to-point service improves travel times by ensuring that routes operate as directly as possible.
4. Service should connect to regional transit. BurbankBus primarily serves as a local connection to regional transit, and it is important to maintain this regional connectivity so that employees traveling into Burbank, and residents traveling out of Burbank can benefit from ongoing investments in regional transit connectivity.
Whe
n considering changes to the Green Route service, the City’s service policies should guide decisions on how changes should be made. I n addition, other important considerations include: route duplication with Metro services; number of buses needed to perform operations , and c ost. In some cases, adherence to the Service Policies may ATTACHMENT 5 - 2
conflict with some of the other considerations that are made when deciding to deploy services. A service that conforms to the service policies may nonetheless have a high cost, may conflict or duplicate with Metro, or may not be achievable with the City’s current transit fleet.
Current Operations and Budget
MV Public Transportation, Inc. (MV) is the current contractor who operates the BurbankBus fixed-route services and maintains 17 City -owned buses. The City entered into a Transit Operations and Maintenance Services Agreement with MV on March 30, 2021 and this contract is set to expire in 2024 with t wo, one-year options to extend the agreement. MV has a long standing partnership with the City since 2011, and they also assist other neighboring cities, such as Glendale.
The total annual direct cost to provide BurbankBus fixed-route services (that is, the cost the City pays to MV to operate the service each year) is currently approximately $1,600,000 per year, and the Green Route accounts for approximately 21% of that annual cost. Additionally, Metro is currently subsidizing a portion of the BurbankBus Orange Route in the amount of about $200,000 as part of mitigating the Interstate 5 North HOV / Empire Interchange Project, and that subsidy will end Winter 2023.
Proposed Changes to the Transit O
perations and Maintenance Agreement
In September 2022, MV requested to increase the amount in the agreement due to wages and maintenance issues with the existing City fleet. With regard to wages, MV indicates difficulty in its ability to remain market competitive with hiring, recruiting, and retaining bus operators during the Pandemic as affecting its cost to provide service. As a bus contractor, they are negotiating drivers’ salar ies and benefits with the Teamsters Local Union Number 848. With regard to vehicle maintenance, the City is in the process of procuring six replacement CNG vehicles for its oldest vehicles. This process has been delayed while the Council adopted its transit vehicle electrification policy, which is required to meet state zero emission vehicle mandates imposed on transit providers.
Because of this delay, the City’s bus fleet is increasingly harder to maintain, particularly in finding vehicle replacement parts for the 2006 and 2009 City-owned buses. Parts either no longer exist or the cost of the parts have increased due to inflation. As a result, this is increasing the City’s operating costs and has also impacted the City’s ability to expand service with these fleet limitations.
To address these impacts, staff and MV have negotiated a proposed amendment to the Transit Operations and Maintenance Services Agreement that would increase the amount by 13% for the remainder of year two of the contract, and by 20% for year three of the contract. This amounts to an increase of approximately $286,151 over the remaining 14 months of the agreement. While this is a large increase, MV’s cost – even when accounting for this proposed cost increase – i s still competitively lower than the other ATTACHMENT 5 - 3
proposal the City received when it competitively bid the BurbankBus operations contract in 2021. Additionally, transit operators are seeing a high inflation cost across the industry due to the Pandemic with inventory shortages and labor costs for maintaining buses. Due to these issues, staff is recommending to amend the Transit Operations and Maintenance Agreement to increase the cost of service to maintain operations. The agreement would also allow MV to use up to two of the City’s smaller 20 passenger Senior and Disabled transit vehicles for fixed-route services. These two vehicles are currently not needed for Senior and Disabled services and are much newer than the older fixed route vehicles.
Finally, some of the cost increase of the proposed amendment can be offset with staff’s proposed service changes for the Green Route, explained further below.
Service Change Options f
or the Green Route
Staff believes Council should consider service alternatives to the BurbankBus NoHo to Media District (Green) Route to address poor ridership. Over the last year, staff and the Transportation Commission evaluated several alternatives to operating the current Green Route, including service increases, modifications, and cancellations. Based on this discussion, t wo options are being presented: 1) eliminating the Green Route and reallocating resources to a new north -south service on Buena Vista Street between the Burbank Airport North Station and the Media District ; and 2) eliminating the route altogether with no resource reallocation to address budgetary constraints. The Transportation Commission received information and discussed potential service change options to the Green Route via four different meetings that are summarized in Attachment
5. At the latest meeting in November 2022, Transportation Commission recommended Option 1 for a new north- south service on Buena Vista Street between Burbank Airport North Station and the Media District as a one-year pilot project, which is described below.
Option 1 – Reallocating Resources to a N ew North-South Service on Buena Vista Street between the Burbank Airport North Station and the Media District as a One- Year Pilot Project. Service change Option 1 would eliminate the Green Route and reallocate resources to a new north- south service on Buena Vista Street between the Burbank Airport and the Media Distric t. Service would also expand to operate all day every 15 minutes between 5:30 AM and 10:40 PM all weekday and weekends. The proposed route along Buena Vista between the airport and the Media District will run for a 12-month trial period, after which the Transportation Commission and the Council will re-evaluate the service. A map of the proposed new Green Route is included as Attachment 6. This service would cost an additional $141 ,000 per year to operate, for a total of $512,279
1. This service option would conform to all four of the City’s BurbankBus service policies. If this recommendation is implemented, it would take approximately three 1 This is the cost the City would pay to MV Transportation, Inc. to operate this new route, and does not include administrative costs of approximately 10-15%.
ATTACHMENT 5 - 4
months to create new bus stops, bus schedules, public outreach, notifications, and work with other transit operators to align schedules.
Option 2 – Eliminate Green Route . Under this option, the City would eliminate the Green Route entirely. Elimination would remove a transit service option between North Hollywood, west Magnolia Park, and the Media District. Metro currently provides a bus service between North Hollywood and Magnolia Park with the Metro 94 line (15-minute service) and service between North Hollywood and the Media District with the Metro 501 line ( 20-minute service) . Service between North Hollywood and the Hollywood Way corridor would be provided by the Metro 94 line (15-minute) with a transfer to the Metro 222 line (30-minute service). All alternative Metro lines provide better service than the BurbankBus Green Route, except that service to the Hollywood Way corridor would require a transfer using Metro instead of a single trip via the Green Route. A map of the service alternatives to the Green Route is included as Attachment 7. There would not be a service replacement between North Hollywood and the Buena Vista corridor if the Green Route were cancelled because there is no Metro service operating on Buena Vista.
While an assessment of the City’s service policies cannot be made on a cancelled service, it should be noted that the current Green Route only conforms to one of the four service policies (it makes a regional connection). It is not frequent, does not operate all day, and is not point-to-point. If this recommendation is implemented, it would take approximately three months to eliminate the Green Route to provide enough notification time to riders.
Regardless of whether Council directs staff to implement Option 1 or Option 2, staff recommends that service frequencies and service hours on the remaining two BurbankBus routes – Pink and Orange – be increased to restore service to pre-Pandemic levels. Since these routes perform better than the Green route, increased service on these remaining two routes will help BurbankBus respond to increased d emand by commuters who are returning to work and may increase their use of transit.
Option 2 is staff’s recommendation because of the budgetary constraints faced today, increased limitations on its vehicle fleet until new vehicles can be delivered, poor ridership on the existing Green Route, and the Green Route is unable to meet the four service policies. Cancellation would also allow the City to offset some of the costs associated with the proposed MV contract amendment, because while the cost-per-hour of MV’s service would increase, the City would be buying less service hours because the Green Route’s elimination would lower the number of hours needed to run BurbankBus.
Next Steps for BurbankBus
The Green Route elimination would save approximately $371,000 in Local Return transportation funds that could be redirected to other Burbank routes such as the Orange Route. The Orange Route is currently being subsidized by Metro as part of the Interstate 5 North HOV / Empire Interchange Project. Since the freeway project will be completed ATTACHMENT 5 - 5
later this year, the Orange Route subsidy will also end. The cost savings from the Green Route elimination could offset the loss from the subsidy. Some Green Route cost savings will also be used to increase frequencies or service hours on the remaining two BurbankBus routes.
El
iminating the Green Route would mean BurbankBus will temporarily have only two routes – Pink and Orange. While two bus routes are not ideal, it provides a short -term opportunity for the City to make necessary changes to BurbankBus overall services.
When the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) Bu s Rapid Transit (BRT) from North Hollywood to Pasadena Transit Corridor project is implemented in 2024, this will duplicate BurbankBus’ Pink Route service. Staff would like to take this opportunity in the next 12 months working with the community, Transportation Commission, and Council to make changes to the Pink Route and potentially design a new fixed route for residents and commuters.
Dur
ing this calendar year, staff will also be purs uing the Transit Vehicle Electrification Policy approved by Council in 2022. This policy includes cooperat ing with the City of Glendale to investigate whether or not to co-locate and coordinate transit services with the City of Glendale Beeline service by 2026. The effort to electrify the City’s transit fleet and co-locate with Glendale would require a $12 million investment for Burbank, and the estimated cost of this policy includes the cost to transition to Battery Electric Buses (BEBs) and construction of associated infrastructure. To meet this goal, staff will prepare a zero-emission bus rollout plan later this year as required by the California Air Resources Board, and will also work on applying for grants to reach the $12 million investment goal.
ENVI
RONMENTAL REVIEW
Service Option 1 (Reallocate Resources to New North- South Service), is Statutorily Exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to the Public Resources Code Section 21080.25(b)(5) pertaining to the increase of Compressed Natural Gas bus service on existing public rights of way. Service Option 2 (E liminate Service) is Categorically Exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15301 Class I: The BurbankBus Green Route is part of the City's public bus transit system and works in concert with LA County Metro and Metrolink to provide a public tr ansit network for local and regional public transit riders. The proposed elimination of the City's Green Route would result in a negligible change to the public access to public transit in the City and larger region. Specifically, the Green Route exhibits very low ridership and duplicates other Metro transit service, therefore elimination is not expected to materially change the public's access to, or usage of, transit service in the City.
FI
SCAL IMPACT
There is no impact to the City’s General Fund by prov iding transit services. The costs incurred (or savings generated) by each alternative would directly affect the City’s ATTACHMENT 5 - 6
Proposition C and Measure R Local Return funds, as these are used to fund the City’s BurbankBus fixed-route transit services. Proposition C funds are restricted to funding transit and active transportation projects. Measure R funds are restricted to fund most transportation projects, including transit, active transportation, roadway, and transportation demand management programs. The fiscal impact for each option would be related to how each option differs from the way the City currently provides service.
If Council chooses to move forward with Option 1, then a budget amendment for Fiscal Year 2022- 23 would be required to appropriate $15 0,000 from 105. ND000.40029 (Proposition C, Non -Departmental, Local Return) to expenditure account number 105.CD32B.62170 (Proposition C, Community Development, Private Cont ractual Services) to cover the cost of amending the Transit Operational and Maintenance Agreement with MV and the associated administrative cost to implement the proposed changes to the Green Route. The remaining cost of the Green Route implementation would be incorporated in the new fiscal year with Proposition C funds and will be included in the upcoming budget process. After the one-year trial period, staff would assess and provide ridership dat a at a future Council meeting to determine whether the route is successful.
If City Council chooses to move forward with eliminating the Green Route under Option 2, a budget amendment would still be required to offset costs for the proposed amendment to t he Transit Operational and Maintenance Agreement . Staff is recommending City Council amend the Fiscal Year 2022- 23 budget to appropriate $110,000 from 105.ND000.40029 (Proposition C, Non- Departmental, Local Return) to expenditure account number 105.CD32B.62170 (Proposition C, Community Development, Private Contractual Services) . The increased cost for the third year term will be appropriated during the upcoming fiscal year budget process.
CONCLUSION
BurbankBus is a critical component of the City’s transportation network and infrastructure.
Transit service is a lso an important service to the community to help reduce single- occupancy vehicles off streets and help the City meet its greenhouse gas reduction target goals. MV Public Transportation, Inc. assists the City in operating BurbankBus and maintaining the fleet. Staff is recommending Council approve the amendment to the Transit Operational and Maintenance Agreement to address the budget constraints, and eliminate the Green Route while working together on the adopted goals for the BurbankBus transit program.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1 - Amendment No. 1 - Operational and Maintenance Agreement with MV Public Transportation, Inc.
Attachment 2 – Agreement for BurbankBus Transit Operations and Maintenance Services Attachment 3 – BurbankBus Route Map
ATTACHMENT 5 - 7
Attachment 4 – Proposed Changes to the Vehicle Service Hour Rates Attachment 5 – Summary and Minutes from Transportation Commission Meetings Attachment 6 – Transportation Commission’s Recommended Green Route Attachment 7 – BurbankBus and LA Metro Bus Routes
ATTACHMENT 5 - 8