So, what happened to Capital Metro? Overall, we achieved much of what was in our legislative agenda: bus-only shoulders, civilian fare enforcement, contracted peace officer authority, and use of the State’s travel discount. Unfortunately though, due to the State's budget constraints, we weren’t able to negotiate an agreement with them so that State employees could benefit from annual transit passes. Also very unfortunately, the Legislature was not willing to grant local entities more funding mechanisms for local transportation projects (the local-option funding measure doggedly and valiantly led by Senator John Carona). I find this to be incredibly disappointing but sadly, I am not surprised.
There were also a lot of other changes that were carried forward in legislation by Senator Kirk Watson and Representative Eddie Rodriguez. (This is probably what most of you are most interested in.) Those affect our board composition; our ability to operate passenger rail and set our own fares; and internal audit, review and reporting requirements of our agency.
If you're interested in what passed that most directly affects Capital Metro, here's a summary.
SENATE BILL 1263 (Senator Watson, Rep. Rodriguez) -- This is the big bill.
Board composition: Changes the composition of the Capital Metro board, most significantly by increasing the total number of members from seven to eight by adding another CAMPO appointee. Watson’s original proposal had called for more significant changes but negotiations in the past few days resulted in the Legislature essentially maintaining the current board composition with some minor tweaks.
The new board composition is as follows:
- 3 members appointed by CAMPO -- 1 must be an elected official, 1 must have at least 10 years of experience as a financial or accounting professional, and 1 must have at least 10 years of experience in an executive-level position.
- 2 members appointed by the City of Austin -- 1 must be an elected official
- 1 member appointed by Travis County
- 1 member appointed by Williamson County
- 1 member, who must be an elected official, appointed by all the small city mayors in Capital Metro's service area (which excludes City of Austin).
This is not much different than today in that the City of Austin currently appoints two reps, Travis County appoints a rep, various Williamson County officials appoint a rep, and the small city mayors in Travis County appoint a rep. The big change is the CAMPO component. Today they appoint two reps and there are no specific requirements of those individuals. The change gives them an additional rep and requires specific types of experience or elected official status for those reps.
Rail referendum requirements: Allows Capital Metro to forgo the highly unique referendum currently required of our agency in order for us to operate passenger rail (and which is required even if we are not needing to ask the voters for any additional funds to build the system, as was the case for our Red Line that was built within existing means) if
- We are entering into a contract to build, operate or maintain a fixed rail transit system for another entity, or
- Voters already approved funds for the project at an election called by our agency or another entity.
Fare approval abilities: Allows Capital Metro to set our own fares (like most any other transit agency in the country), except that CAMPO can veto the base fare if they do so within 60 days of the board it (which is unlike most any other transit agency in the country).
Internal auditor: Requires the Capital Metro board to hire an internal auditor who would report directly to the board. (Today our internal auditor reports both to the board and to our staff president.)
Sunset review: Requires Capital Metro to undergo a sunset review by the Sunset Advisory Commission, but without the possibility of being abolished. This would happen once now and/or next year depending on when it starts and how long it lasts, and again in 2016/2017.
Annual reporting requirements: Requires Capital Metro to provide annual reports to other entities to which we have any financial obligations.
Other operational abilities: Specifies that nonpayment of a fare is not a crime of moral turpitude (this is important for aspiring attorneys and other professionals I hear), allows Capital Metro to hire civilian fare enforcement officers, and ensures that peace officers with whom we contract for security can enforce violations against the Capital Metro system while on duty for Capital Metro (because we contract with APD and they may be on the train in Leander as part of their security duties).
SB 899 (Senator Duell, Rep. Smith) allows all Texas transit agencies to use the State’s travel discounts when employees or officers of the agency are traveling for work. (Saves us and thus you money!)
SB 434 (Senator Wentworth, Rep. Bolton) allows Capital Metro, at least in Travis County, (and San Antonio VIA, Denton County Transportation Authority, and Sun Metro in El Paso) to operate buses on highway shoulders during times of heavy traffic congestion in areas pre-approved by TxDOT. Basically, if traffic slows to 35 mph, our buses can use the highway shoulders as a travel lane but there are limits on just how fast they can go compared to the rest of traffic so that buses don't go unsafely whizzing by the other motorists who will be stuck in traffic because they didn't take the bus. (I'm sure I'll be one of those people one day just for being so snide.) There will be signs noting it's only for public bus use.
That's about it. I have a bunch of bills to dig through and see if anything else passed that might have helped or hurt us. Fun, fun, fun. If you're needing some good bedtime reading, let me know. I got a stack of it.
