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Minutes for HB2096 - Committee on Transportation
Short Title
Operation of transit buses on certain right shoulders in Wyandotte County.
Minutes Content for Wed, Mar 8, 2017
The Chairperson opened the hearing on this bill. Scott Wells, Senior Assistant Revisor, gave an overview and noted this bill extends the bus on shoulders operations into Wyandotte County and would remove the requirement, currently for Johnson County, for an annual report. He noted an identical bill, SB35, was heard several weeks ago. In response to a question, he replied that the $250,000 implementation cost will be paid by Johnson County, which already has the funds because of plans to extend the program to Wyandotte County.
Chuck Ferguson, Chief Planning Officer, Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, gave proponent testimony (Attachment 1). As noted above, this Committee heard a similar Senate bill. He added he supports any annual reporting requirements, and March 1 would be a good reporting date because annual audits are completed in late February. He confirmed Johnson County has moneys available to pay for improvements and an agreement with the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) to pay.
In response to a question, Mr. Ferguson noted that ridership or traffic on the I-35 route has decreased over the past couple of years since the price of gasoline is lower. However, indicators show ridership increasing as the price of gas is increased. There has been an increase in local transit services in Johnson County.
Mr. Ferguson added the original project always proposed the 3.5 miles in Wyandotte County would be added. The project was started with Johnson County to see how it worked, and it worked much better than expected. A bus takes 5-6 car lengths on the road, so a bus traveling on the shoulder frees up much space on the highway. The portion of I-35 on which the program would be expanded is congested at each rush hour.
Tuck Duncan, Executive Director, Kansas Public Transit Association, provided proponent testimony (Attachment 2). He also testified on the Senate version, has no objections to the reporting requirements, added an amendment to SB35, and asked for support of this bill.
Senator Hawk noted the buses cannot exceed traffic speed by more than 10 miles per hour and asked if every bus has a dash camera. Mr. Ferguson responded that the dash cam is connected to the GPS system and records 20 seconds prior and 20 seconds after an accident or hard application of the vehicle's brakes, and images are captured and set by WiFi to headquarters. This is administered by First Transit Corporation, and records the speed, brake time, and passengers on board in order to protect assets.
Written proponent testimony was furnished by:
Mike Taylor, Public Relations Director, Unified Government, Wyandotte County (Attachment 3)
Reid Petty, Legislative Affairs, Kansas Department of Transportation (Attachment 4)
There was no opponent or neutral testimony.
The hearing was closed.
