Trams and Taxes Part 2

Thursday night's special meeting of the occupancy tax board brought out sixty (!) island residents to debate the pros and cons of funding the proposed tram system. The meeting clocked in at a little over two hours, and allowed for many questions from community members. 

Ocracoke's county commissioner, Tom Pahl, kicked off the meeting by welcoming the attendees. "This is democracy in action," he said, pleased with the turnout. "We want to get input from people."

Hyde County manager Bill Rich addressed the OT board (Bob Chestnut, Trudy Austin, Marlene Mathews, Stephanie O'Neal, and David Styron) officially requested allocation of occupancy tax funds over a two-year period. It will cost $216,000 to operate the trams for one season, but to soften the blow the county asked for $108,000 this year and $108,000 next year.

The reason for the special meeting (the OT board will hear annual requests from Ocracoke organizations in April as usual) is that Hyde County needs to know by the end of February whether or not they'll get the money for next year.

Will Letchworth and Claire Brinkley from WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff engineering firm presented a slide show explaining how the new tram system would work. Kris Noble (Hyde County planner and assistant county manager), Beverly Paul (director of Hyde County Transit), and Ed Timoney, the NCDOT's passenger ferry project manager, were also on hand to answer questions.

As explained by Claire and Will, the purpose of the proposed transit system is to complement the passenger ferries that will start carrying vehicle-less folks to Ocracoke in May of 2018. 

"The goal is to move people beyond the harbor," Claire said. "It will also make navigating easy for all and reduce strain on parking." The planners expect that the tram system will be used by the passenger ferry daytrippers, daytrippers who want to park their cars and explore the village, visitors who are staying on the island, and residents.

According to the feasibility study conducted by the ferry division (see the whole thing here), 90% of Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry riders are daytrippers. Mostly, they come to eat – 57% of them, to be precise. 43% want to shop and 33% are headed to the beach. The passenger ferries will allow daytrippers (for a price) to skip the long wait at the ferry terminals, and hop on a faster boat to Ocracoke, where they will disembark at Silver Lake harbor. 

The plan is to build a tram lane in front of the NPS Visitor Center, which will allow pedestrian passengers to catch a tram and ride around the village or out to the beach. The tram lane will be long enough to allow private enterprise (golf cart rentals, pedicabs, golf cart taxis, etc.) to share the space and vie for passengers. Those businesses will, however, be competing with free. The tram system, as planned, will be fare-free, and open to everyone. 

To run the three trams that the planners think is the bare minimum will cost $123,000 in wages, $61,000 in direct costs, and $32,000 in indirect costs for the 5-month period that the passenger ferries are operating. Each of the three trams will hold 23 passengers for a total of 69 if all trams are full. A filled-to-capacity passenger ferry will bring 100 people at a time, people who have paid $15 each to not wait in line. A good day would be 580 people riding the passenger ferries to Ocracoke and back again. 

"We know these vehicles aren't sufficient to serve the people we'll see," Will explained. "Demand will far outweigh supply, and private industry really has to step up." 

The trams will run from 9am until 8:30pm, the same hours that the passenger ferries will run. Drivers will need a Commercial Driver's License and proof of good health. Hyde County Transit plans to set up a class on the island to train drivers for the CDL test. The trams will be open air and two will run routes through the village, while a third will be the Hwy. 12 Express and go from the dock to the lifeguard beach and back again with minimal stops along the way. Drivers will announce stops and locations with a PA system.  

Questions and concerns from the crowd included:

• Congestion: the trams will, at many of their scheduled stops, have to stop in the middle of the road to load and unload passengers. Some recall the '70s-era Ocracoke Trolley as a hindrance to traffic. 
• Bait and switch: will we be advertising a free service that very few people will actually get to ride because of limited capacity? Will our visitors have a negative reaction to Ocracoke? During their passenger ferry ride, passengers will be actively encouraged to explore all of Ocracoke and will be informed about their transportation opportunities on the island. Walking is always an option.
• Lighthouse Road and Springer's Point: reactions were mixed about the tram's planned route down Lighthouse Road and around the Loop to Springer's. It's a long way out of the way of commercial enterprise for a service that's intended to benefit Ocracoke businesses, and there's no place for the ferry to pull off the road at the entrance to Springer's. Then again, it's a nice way to allow visitors to enjoy the splendors of Springer's Point. Bill pointed out that both the Park Service and the NC Coastal Land Trust like the idea of getting more visitors to the Lighthouse and Springer's. When asked what people would do while they were waiting for the tram to come back (besides swat mosquitoes), Will suggested that they could start walking toward Hwy. 12. He also mentioned that having the tram turn right at Albert Styron's Store and not make the complete loop was a scenario that had been considered.
• Type of tram vehicle: electric or gas? Beverly Paul said their were pros and cons for each, and they hadn't decided for sure yet which they will get. 
• Maintenance/breakdowns: NCDOT has funds to purchase six trams; the extra three (two of which will be ADA compliant) will be back-ups in case of maintenance issues, congested traffic, and needing to recharge (if they are electric trams.) Beverly doesn't know yet where the maintenance yard/space will be. And there's not yet a firm plan about if/how to use the trams in October-April. (They could possibly be available for community events, e.g. Pirate Jamboree) They did mention a back-up plan just in case a passenger ferry breaks down or can't run because of weather. Somehow (they didn't explain how) they'll get people up to the South Dock (located at the north end of Ocracoke for confusion's sake) so they can ride the car ferry and get back to their cars on Hatteras. 
• Feeling left out: a certain business owner wanted to know why the tram was omitting historic Howard Street on its route. Will said that stops and routes are open for review. 
• Restrooms: where will all these extra people pee? There's no money in this plan for public restrooms. But, as Bob Chestnut pointed out, we have had this many people on the island before. Back when we had the short route between Hatteras and Ocracoke, we had those extra 580 (and more!) people coming over each summer day. The goal of passenger ferries is to restore our visitation to previous levels. Where did they pee then? That's back when OCBA was working on a public restroom plan that didn't get funded by the OT board. A need for public restrooms comes up every year. 
• Commissioners: we know what the county manager, county planner, and transit director think (they are all for it), but how do the commissioners feel about this project? The commissioners have the power to override OT board recommendations (think of it as the "nuclear option"), but both Tom Pahl and Earl Pugh (the two commissioners present) vowed to honor the decision of the OT board. They expect the other three commissioners will feel the same way.
• Trams vs. golf carts: if the trams can go out to the lifeguard beach, will golf carts be able to, too? Nope, not unless they are licensed and insured as vehicles, said Ocracoke's head NPS ranger, Ed Fuller.
• Failure: what if the passenger ferries aren't successful? "If the passenger ferries are a flop, we drop the system," Bill said. He's confident that won't be the case. Will said that the tram system would be good for Ocracoke even without the passenger ferries, but "the trams are integral to the success of the passenger ferries." They feel that without ground transportation support, the passenger ferries are doomed.

But the main discussion was about money, moolah, mint, megabucks, mammon. 

Bill asserts that the passenger ferry/tram phenomenon is "going to be so successful it will fuel the entire economy" and he reminded everyone that the county is looking to OT for support for just the first year. But a really successful system will require more trams that would require more operating funds. The county is asking Ocracoke's occupancy tax board to fund the tram system's operating costs for just 2018. What happens after that?

The board of commissioners has options to raise more money for the county. They could raise the occupancy tax rate by up to 2% more. (It's 3% now). They could enact a .25% sales tax. They could seek out grant funding. They could work over the county budget until they found the money. Both commissioners mentioned the possibility of enacting the extra taxes as workable solutions. 

Charging a fare for the tram service is a possibility, but one with inherent problems in collecting moneys and checking tickets and discouraging use. Perhaps most importantly, even with a daily fare of $7 per passenger, the tram system would have a $100,000 shortfall that would need to come from somewhere.

Bob did some OT math and came up with a figure of $365,000 that the board can appropriate for the 2017-18 fiscal year. Ocracoke's organizations made fifteen requests totaling $477,905, and the OT board recommended appropriating a total of $365,005. If you take $108,000 off of what's available and give it to the tram project, how do you decide which other programs get cut?

"I took last year's appropriations, and tried to do the math, and it's difficult," Bob said. "It's hard to scrimp on the fire department. It's going to be tough to decide."

Some questioned why the county can't fund the project through their own budget without coming to Ocracoke for OT money.   "If the county thinks it's going to be this good and bring more sales tax, why not have the county support it?" asked Darlene Styron. "They should have some skin in the game."   Bob pointed out that on page 48 of the feasibility study it says "the Ferry Division is very confident such levels of shortfall in annual transit funds would be accommodated in some fashion either by the department or through some combination of local and state support." But only Ocracoke is being asked for that support.  

One of the last discussions was about the OT board's longstanding policy of giving preference to projects over operating expenses. Other organizations are wondering if this will set a precedent so that they can ask for operating expenses. Bob will check the statute on that, but he's pretty sure it's a policy, not a rule, and that they can make an exception to their policy as needed.

The meeting adjourned after a motion to table the decision. Bob encouraged the attendees to send him their extra comments within the week. The OT board will meet again for a working meeting (others can attend, but not talk) soon and they need comments before then. Email Bob at bob@surfocracoke.com to say your piece.  

One question that didn't get asked (why didn't I ask it???) was: what happens to the tram project if the OT board says no? Will the county seek other sources of funding? Will they scrap it? I posed those questions to Bill Rich in an email this morning, but haven't heard back from him yet. I will update this story when I do. UPDATE: Here's Bill's answer: "I asked that exact question and was told that the passenger ferries were coming to Silver Lake and we needed to figure out the best way to move the people around. If we felt we didn't need trams and felt like the private sector combined with bikes and walking could continue to support the masses then so be it. [NCDOT] could use the tram money for the boats and infrastructure as they are short some funds per projected improvements. The [tram] project will not be scrapped. We need to find the 216k in a combination of OT funds and County contribution. The system will be fundable after 2018 with a combination of several funding methods that will be available."

The OT board meeting to decide on tram funding will be Wednesday, February 22nd at 5:30pm at the Community Center. You can attend, but only to listen. The OT board will meet to hear regular annual requests on Tuesday, April 4.