• What: C-Tran Board of Directors workshop meeting.
• Why: The board is expected to discuss the C-Tran 2030 plan, among other topics.
• When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
• Where: Rose F. Besserman Community Room, Fisher’s Landing Transit Center, 3510 S.E. 164th Ave., Vancouver.
Five years ago, C-Tran leaders approved a long-range plan that for the first time detailed what the transit agency could look like in 2030.
The vision included new bus routes, new transit centers and a bus rapid transit line. It also included a new Interstate 5 Bridge and a light rail extension into Vancouver.
Obviously, a lot has changed since then.
The C-Tran Board of Directors is now planning to revisit the 20-year plan as it rethinks the agency’s future. Board members could decide to update the existing document, said C-Tran spokesman Jim Quintana, or they could opt for a complete overhaul.
• What: C-Tran Board of Directors workshop meeting.
• Why: The board is expected to discuss the C-Tran 2030 plan, among other topics.
• When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
• Where: Rose F. Besserman Community Room, Fisher's Landing Transit Center, 3510 S.E. 164th Ave., Vancouver.
“They may want to start from the ground up,” Quintana said.
The board will gather Saturday for a daylong workshop at the Fisher’s Landing Transit Center in east Vancouver. The meeting, facilitated by consultant Richard Howells of Richard Howells & Associates, is expected to focus largely on the C-Tran 2030 plan.
Perhaps more importantly, the gathering will give a new board the chance to learn more about the agency and strengthen collaboration among its members, said La Center Mayor and C-Tran board Chairman Jim Irish. A recomposition process last year rearranged the makeup of the C-Tran board; the body now includes several new faces.
Some leaders have publicly and privately decried dysfunction on the C-Tran board in recent years. That’s partly because the group has drifted away from serving C-Tran as a whole, Irish said, and instead focused on individual interests.
As for the long-range plan itself, it will be up to the board to develop ideas for how to change C-Tran’s vision, Irish said.
“And if so, how would we change for the best of the group, rather than individually?” said Irish, who has served on the C-Tran board for more than a decade.
The conversation around C-Tran’s future should involve economic development and livability in the community, said Vancouver City Council and C-Tran board member Bart Hansen. On livability, Hansen noted a recent proposal to give high school students the ability to ride C-Tran free on weekdays. That’s something the city and C-Tran have both indicated they’re willing to look into.
Hansen agreed that the 2030 plan needs to be refined somehow. The document should reflect current events and the current board, he said. Things change, he added, but it’s important to have an overall vision.
“You have a guide. You have a guiding principle that you can fall back on,” Hansen said. “It’s easier to make some of the smaller decisions that are going to pop up from time to time.”
The C-Tran 2030 plan was formally adopted in June 2010. It followed a broader 50-year “vision statement” adopted the previous year.
Some parts of the 2030 plan remain on track. The agency expects to open The Vine, its planned bus rapid transit line in Vancouver, late next year. The system will run primarily along the city’s Fourth Plain corridor between Westfield Vancouver mall and downtown.
The plan also delved into C-Tran’s finances. It assumed a sales tax increase some time after 2010, then a second tax hike after 2020. But that, too, may change, Quintana said.
Voters did approve a sales tax increase in 2011 that C-Tran characterized as necessary for basic bus service and C-Van paratransit service. The 2011 vote put C-Tran’s finances on solid footing, Quintana said. “We’re good for the foreseeable future,” he said.
In 2012, voters rejected a separate tax increase that was intended for high-capacity transit, including light rail. The Columbia River Crossing, the I-5 Bridge replacement project that would have brought light rail to Clark County, died for good in 2014.
This weekend’s workshop could help set the direction for where the agency wants to go, Quintana said. Any formal update to the C-Tran 2030 plan would involve a thorough process and a lot of public outreach, he said.
