AppalCART Forum Poorly Attended
 

AppalCART is in the process of replacing some of its aging fleet. Photo by Kathleen McFadden

Despite the placement of display ads in the local and ASU newspapers announcing an AppalCART public forum to review the past year and solicit ideas for the next, the turnout at Monday night’s forum was limited to board members, a media representative and one local resident. Although he didn’t have much of an audience, AppalCART Director Chris Turner nevertheless presented a detailed report on the transit authority’s services, ridership, budget and capital improvement plans.
 

Fiscal year 2002-03 marked the third year in a row that AppalCART recorded more than 600,000 passenger trips which corresponds to 477,501 vehicle miles. Those numbers include all of AppalCART’s services, including its fixed routes (which account for the majority — 82.4 percent — of the ridership), paratransit, special shuttles and rural, after-school, parks and rec and Morganton School for the Deaf routes.
 

And despite a slight decrease in ridership from last year due to weather cancellations and the university’s shortened semesters, “It was a good year financially,” Turner said. “We ended up in the black.”
 

This year’s budget is not yet finalized, Turner explained, because he has not yet received word on the amount of funding the authority will receive from the State Maintenance Assistance Program (SMAP). The total could range from a low of less than $300,000 to a maximum of $370,000, depending on the formula the state uses to calculate AppalCART’s allocation. Turner explained that in previous years the formula has been based on hours of service, but he has petitioned SMAP to use passenger trips instead of hours to take into account the higher operating costs of the fixed-route service. Turner said that he won’t know for at least two weeks how much SMAP money the authority will receive for the current fiscal year. He budgeted $323,000 — last year’s funding amount — and said that if the allocation falls below last year’s level, the search for funds to cover the deficit will commence. If funding is increased over last year’s level, however, the authority may be able to expand service. Turner said that the obvious route expansion is to add another bus to the POP 105 route, the route serving University Highlands apartments on Highway 105, Caldwell Community College on the Highway 105 Bypass and other apartment complexes along the way to the ASU campus.
 

“More and more people are recognizing the need for public transportation,” Turner said, and he said that more frequent bus service on the POP 105 route could induce others to leave their cars at home and take the bus.
 

AppalCART is also in the process of replacing some of its fleet. Two new buses began operating this summer, and the authority plans to order three more in November. These will be low-floor buses that have no steps at the front door, making them easier to board, safer in the winter and more adaptable for handicapped accessibility.
 

Turner said that the authority is also moving forward with plans to build a larger facility at the site of the Coleman Burley Warehouse on the Highway 105 Bypass. The board originally endorsed the Blue Skies warehouse site on State Farm Road as a cost-effective new home for the transit operation, but the Federal Transit Administration nixed that idea, Turner said, because of the ground and water pollution from the closed Vermont American plant. The federal agency, Turner said, which would provide the bulk of the funding for a new facility, would not assume the liability for a contaminated site, and so the board had to locate another property for an expanded operation.
 

AppalCART employs 22 full-time workers and 24 part-time workers without benefits. Its FY 2003-04 budget is just over $2 million, with operating expenses of $1,080,579, administration costs of $284,529 and capital expenses of $643,544. State and federal funding account for the bulk of the authority’s revenues.

AppalCART Project Receives Conditional Approval

At their regular meeting on Tuesday night, the Watauga County Board of Commissioners addressed AppalCART’s proposed new facility, as well as a variety of financial and non-financial issues.

AppalCART Facility
The board gave AppalCART Director Chris Turner conditional approval to proceed with a land purchase for a new transit authority facility on the Highway 105 Bypass at the former site of the Coleman Burley Warehouse.

At a previous meeting, the commissioners requested additional information and commitments from Turner, including funding agreements for the new facility from the Town of Boone and Appalachian State University, a determination as to the adequacy of the well on the proposed site, a letter from the authority’s auditor agreeing to the use of $110,000 of AppalCART’s fund balance for the 10 percent local match required for the land purchase and a determination of whether the new building would require a sprinkler system. Except for a funding commitment from ASU, Turner provided documents that satisfied the commissioners questions.

Under the proposed agreement, the county, the town and ASU would all contribute to the 10 percent local match on the estimated $4.5 million project in varying percentages based on ridership. ASU’s share of the match would be 77.1 percent, the county would contribute 12.5 percent and the town 10.4 percent. At their September 25 meeting, members of the Boone Town Council unanimously voted to fund the increased allocation. Turner told the commissioners that he had met with ASU attorney Dayton Cole and Vice Chancellor of Business Affairs Jane Helm who, Turner said, “want to support the transit authority” but have a problem with providing contractual support for a capital project that is not directly related to the university. If ASU decides not to contribute, a scenario that Turner said was unlikely given the university’s more than 20 years of support, he said that the authority would cut service to the university.

County Attorney Rebecca Eggers-Gryder pointed out that the purchase contract for the property did not contain specific language making the receipt of state and federal funding a contingency, and the commissioners voted to amend the purchase contract as she suggested and to redraft their original resolution of support.