On his way back to Kentucky, Flemingsburg native and Morehead State University graduate Rocky Burke passed his predecessor as she headed in the opposite direction.
Burke recently left Austin, Texas, where he served in the police department as emergency communications manager, to succeed Terry Garcia Cruz as general manager of LexTran. Cruz had gone West to step into her new role as general manager at Startran, a branch of Austin's Mass Transit Authority, Capital Metro.
Burke's background in mass transit includes director of maintenance and assistant GM for the Austin system; director of maintenance for Tucson's Suntran system; general manager of the transit system in Jackson, Miss., as well as executive positions with bus manufacturers Prevost and Jantz Coach.
Below are the highlights of a recent interview with Burke. You can hear the entire conversation by clicking on the podcast below.
Fuel costs, and cars versus public transit
RB: I really think that people are starting to take a look at public transit as a viable option for getting around. ...Transit agencies around the country are trying to attract the choice ridership, people who have cars but will choose to ride public transit. And of course, with the fuel prices the way that they are, more people are starting to ride the bus. There's hardly a week goes by that I don't get an e-mail or phone call from somebody saying, "Does the bus come by my work? How can I ride the bus? What does it cost?" I'm seeing a huge interest in it.
Is there some gas price "tipping point" that will drive a migration from the car to transit?
RB: I don't know what the dollar amount is. All I tell people is, it only costs a buck to ride the bus. You can buy a monthly pass for $30.00 and ride as often as you want. I don't know whether it's $4, $4.50, I don't know what it's going to be, but I've got to believe that if it's convenient for people, they will ride the bus. That's the key to it. Ö The challenge that we have is to make it more convenient for people so they will ride.
Are you working on convenience?
RB: We're fortunate in that, I guess, about four years ago, the property tax passed, which gave us more funds to do just that. We bought new buses, and we expanded service. Our ridership has pretty much doubled over the last four years. We just put together the budget for our '09 year, and in that there is more money for some service expansion. But ... I think we really need to look at the system that we currently have and refine it to make sure that we have service where we really need it. And if we're running routes that are not productive then let's change those things and move the hours of service where it's really needed.
How about express service?
RB: I was a little bit surprised that we don't have any sort of express service here in town. What I mean by that is from the outlying areas, have limited stop service into the downtown area. We're getting ready to experiment with one at the Walmart location at Man of War (with) limited stop service to Central Baptist, Lexington Clinic, UK, downtown.
How about more shelters at bus stops?
RB: Within the last month, we've gotten approval to put up 15 new shelters that we have, so those are going up. You know there are very few benches around the city. Those aren't all that costly, so we're going to look at buying benches, so where we can't afford to put a shelter, at least put a bench out there for somebody to sit on. We're trying to improve the transit center downtown, making it more attractive, and keep it clean, those sorts of things.
What is LexTran's role in revitalizing downtown Lexington?
RB: One of the things that we're looking at doing in the downtown area specifically is we are looking at a project to create a downtown circulator. Ö We are looking at buying three trolley-type buses, run a real service every five to 10 minutes around the downtown area through the hotels, restaurants, so at least people can come out of their office buildings, get on the bus, go have some lunch and come back.
How would a downtown circulator work?
RB: There are two pieces of it. One is the lunchtime circulator. The other piece is doing something in the evenings starting at 6 p.m. and running it to midnight or something along those lines, and at the same time figuring out a way to get it into the UK area to bring the students down to the restaurants and their entertainment venues, whatever that might be. Austin is a prime example. They have rubber-tire trolleys and they do a lunchtime shuttle, and at the same time, they get into the University of Texas area and bring kids into the entertainment district, Sixth Street and all the live entertainment venues. So I think it could be something that we could really do.
Is this on a fast track?
RB: It is. We've actually applied for federal funding to purchase the trolleys. We should hear something in July, whether or not that grant will be approved. And if it is, the money will be available to us in October. With these federal grants, they give us 80 percent, and the local transit authority comes up with the other 20 percent. So we've got to do that. And then we figured that the cost to operate these four buses is probably going to be $500,000 a year, so we just simply kind of threw that back on the table to all the stakeholders, and said "Hey, can anybody come up and help fund this project?" July is the next major milestone. ...
Anything you would like to add?
RB: I want to hear from the community. Where do you want the buses to go? Where do you want a shelter? Those kinds of things. Help us. Call the Lextran office at (859) 255-7756. My cell phone is out there as well, (859)913-7756. Send me an email at rburke@lextranonthemove.org. Talk to me!