Welcome to Monmouth monthly a peek into the heart of the Willamette Valley. Each month, we will bring you updates of the things happening in and around town brought to you by the people who helped make it happen. I am your host sacred jewel
All right, everybody. Welcome to the second episode of Monmouth monthly. I am thrilled this week to have a collection of guests to talk about the upcoming trolley that's going to be going from the university to the river and independence. And today I have three guests, one of which is representative Paul Evans, who covers district 20, which among other areas serves Monmouth. We also have Marty Wine. She's the city manager of Monmouth, Oregon, and Fred Evander, who's the city planner of independence, Oregon. And Marty and Fred are part of a workgroup that's working to make the trolley go from a dream to a realization. So we're going to hear a little bit about them their work leading up to this trolley and what we can expect. Welcome, everybody.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
All right, I wanted to kind of get a little bit of your background in general and kind of figure out how you got here and how you got into the transit roles. I know, transit is not the day job for any of you. But it seems to be a passion for all three of you. So I'd like to kind of get to know you guys a little bit better when it comes to that. So, Representative Evans, I'd like to start with you if I could. You have, I believe the longest history in the area, political history, and you've got some depth as far as the region. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey?
So thank you for being polite, not just telling me old but I'll take that. Yeah, I've been involved in public service in and around the community since I was elected as a city council when I was 18. In 1988, I spent some time in the military came back, served on the council, as a counselor or mayor, she was on the school board. And there's been some issues over the years that we've been trying to improve upon one kind of piece at a time. And I'm just grateful for living in the community that given me the opportunity to play a role and brought people together around things that we once thought of is nearly impossible.
And Fred, this is not your first gig in city government. Right? You've been doing city planning for other cities around this region?
Yes, that's right. I've been in Independence for four years. But I was also up in Washington State started up by near where Marty used to live up in on Whidbey Island spent some time in the Olympia area, including for a group that ran a or rural transit system. It was essentially it was essentially a regional planning organization. And then yeah, spend some time at a county for a while and then came down here.
And it seems anytime anyone talks about you and your interest, public transit really rises to the top is something that people say you're incredibly passionate about what happened to trigger it to be from something you use to something thing that you were passionate about,
what I would say is, so when I worked up in Washington State, I was writing this transit system that did not function well. And I moved to the community I was planning for, I thought, if I'm planning for this community, I want to write the transit that serves this community. And so I started writing it up to my office in Olympia, and I realized this transit system doesn't work for anybody. And I wrote it and talked to people and just sort of was on it. And at a certain point, I realized this is wrong. I will tell the story too, though. So when we were doing that, part of the inspiration for just the realization that this is wrong, was a guy who was taking his two young boys to college, he was trying to better his life, he had just gotten like a divorce or something, didn't have a car. He was riding a very long way on a very inefficient transit system to try and better his life and his kids life. And so just watching that guy do that every day, every day and his kids get on the bus at like six o'clock in the morning. This has to be better. And it was that guy that really pushed me think how can we do this better?
So I've been Monmouth for two years as the city manager, I was I've been in Oregon for about 11 always worked for state or local or county government. So I've got most of my career has been in public service but launching a trip a transit service lunch and a trolley services that that adds to the great variety of what it's like to be a city manager.
Paul, I'm curious because you have such a deep history in the community. Did this idea of a trolley How long ago did you start hearing the bus often leave from this for constituents like when did they start sharing with you this is something they would even want.
So the history goes back to conversations when West headland was mayor. So it goes back a little bit to my first term on the city council, we talked about things around the state that kind of were interesting and how we could find ways to tie Mama's independence together. And at that point, it was really boy that the cool thing down in Jacksonville and Virginia they got these things and, and it was just discussion when it came back in 98, and ran for mayor who went through a community visioning process, which was a long, interesting story unto itself. But nonetheless, one of the things that came out about it was that it was difficult for people to get between the two towns and that college students in those days didn't always come to campus with a car. So the ability to get to independence to do fun things and to get around back, the mom was to do fun things. And kind of the same day, it was a challenge. So we followed up and started talking about a trolley and then over, you know, the decades since it's always been one of those things that has been on the list of what we would like to see happen. And you talk to people around the community, and basically everybody I ever talked to thought it would be a helpful to have something that ran between the two towns and be possibly helpful for economic development, possibly helpful for seniors trying to get to appointments possibly helpful for some of the students, especially foreign students that come to the country without any vehicle, it just kind of continued to be talked about and grew. And when I got to the legislature in 2015, it was one of the things that I knew the state had transit programs. And I knew a particular transit program might not have the same interest in a small community. But if you combined it with the tourism and economic development is kind of our own little flavor on it, it might work. So we just kept trying to plug away first we got to study then we because of ARPA got an opportunity to get the money and bring people together. And to just continue to flow with the ARPA monies that came through we were charged with if we had $2 million to spend in our community be the greatest force neighbor, the biggest impact, what would it be? And I said, Well, we have this study that actually shows the trolleys could actually work. And that's how we got the money.
I would just add that Representative Evans just told a very modest story of how you know how it all worked. But he's the representative Evans here the force behind getting that funding secured, and there weren't any grant writers involved. It was one of those. You're absolutely right, we built off of the feasibility study and heard from representative Evans and his office that there was money coming to put to launch a trolley service to connect the two communities. So
in represent representative evidence is right as well, that it's been a plan of the cities for many years, I have a hand drawn drawing on the back of my desk at work that shows the downtown 2000 plan or whatever, for independents, and it shows a trolley connecting to Monmouth
and the $3 million that came from the state American rescue plan funds, you know that that number wasn't completely pulled out of thin air it was the feasibility study show that it would an analysis of the cost of what it might look like to run that service. And we knew we would need to secure vehicles and also figure out how to run it for some amount of time. And that so we considered that startup funding in the work group just we started getting together and said, we have this money, we need to start we need to design a service.
So and some of those costs will include the drivers that they're paying to drive the vehicles, the outfitting of the vehicles with a certain technological capabilities to track it via app, right, because there's going to be an app where people can see in real time where the trolley is
we purchased three vehicles, small but mighty fleet of gas and electric trolleys. And the primary cost that that funding is going to be used for is to pay the operators of the of the service. And so and I think what we figured out was, it's really a proof of concept, right? So you've got a $3 million initial investment by vehicles, find an operator, get it running. That's where we are right now. So we need to get it, get it going. And and the idea is also to figure out, what's the demand for it, who wants to ride it? I
think one of the most fun elements is then the design factor and seeing the logos and the colors and Fred, Can you talk a little bit about the process. I know we worked with outside consultants to do the art and the logos but there was with the influence of the community like they were given some choices to pick from Can you talk about that process at all?
Yeah, that's right. We have had a consultant on a lot of this project. Manuel Soto of toole design has been very helpful throughout the entire process. He has a ton of experience with transit systems throughout the world, but especially in America, and so we are completely indebted to him as part of the process. We did ask his firm to help us create some mock ups of trolley designs and whatnot like that. And so we did that and, and even logos and we took a number of logos to the community, we went to events and movies and
in a survey Yeah, I saw it on social media. I think I did my vote on Facebook. Yeah,
we've talked to, we went to a couple of events in independence. And I brought my daughter with me and had her tally up everything as we're talking to people. And so we got a lot of feedback about what logo was best out of the three that tool design had prepared for us. And so that's why we selected the logo that we did.
And when we were talking about branding, the service we got together and we talked about, well, what kind of field? Do we want to have the service, you know, have? Do we want it to be something that feels really modern, and we want to have something that feels more traditional? And I think we eventually we landed on a color scheme. That is it's pretty straightforward primary colors, it's, you know, the idea is to have it be simple and recognizable as something that's the identity of our two cities. And we
are really striving to have it be fun and open sort of experience, we did consider the possibility that the trolleys could have open air and they could open up the sides of the trolleys. But we did not go that way. Because we thought how in the northwest, we live in the Northwest, and how is the driver going to actually do that. So we didn't go with that, but the windows are quite openable. And the windows are also clear. If you look at a lot of transit vehicles, they have tinted windows, and so you can't see into the vehicle very easily and you can't see it sort of obscures it makes everything look drab from the inside. So we're going to be using clear windows.
So one other little origin story about the vehicles themselves. The vehicles came from a company called hometown trolley, they're in Crandon Wisconsin, and we found hometown trolley because our working group kind of all looked at each other and we're like, okay, where are we gonna get trolleys? Right, so we went shopping, and found out that as with most transit agencies, right now, if you want to order a bus for a transit agency, you're looking at a two year timeline, a three year delivery timeline. And we were also looking for, I think, probably representative Evans can speak to this much better than I can but there was a desire to find a vehicle that ran on electric or an alternative fuel. And so that was that was part of our search and when we found hometown and we we found out that they could convert basically there's a it's a Ford chassis, but it's got a hybrid electric system for it to run it that's alter alternates between gas and electric. We said okay, great. And they also had them available to be able to be built for us. So ROM and driver from hometown trolley drove the trolley, each trolley as it came off the production line from Crandon Wisconsin to independence in Monmouth or, and actually made a stop in Salem to pick up representative Evans and some of our other supporters and friends as they rolled into town. And that was in that was in December and January. So it was the I think Ron, the driver had kind of a snowy ride along the way.
If you're just now joining us, we are here today, with Fred Evander Marty wine and Representative Paul Evans to talk about the new MITown trolley that is coming to town, we will be doing a big ribbon cutting for that. Paul, I was just curious, what is one of the things you're most excited about for the community at large? Having this trolley? What opportunities do you think this is gonna open up for folks and in town, and both towns,
there's the list of about five things that I think it will do, the thing I'm most excited about, it will actually shorten the distance between moderates and independents. In reality, most people, even though it's literally two cities, meeting at a fire station, most people some think that, well, I'm home tonight, I don't want to travel all the way over to the other town. And unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, the best parts of Monmouth and independents are actually spread between the two. And the idea is that by able by being able to get onto and off of the trolley whenever you want, and you can have dinner and independence, go for a nice glass of wine and Monmouth and then maybe to the park afterwards, or to get the ice cream and independence. You can you can interweave your activities between the two communities with relative ease. And I think that will bring about a closer relationship between the two communities. And I think it will bring a closer relationship between the students and the people who live here because we'll be riding the trolley together. I remember a time when it was like that. And the pace of life I think is really torn at the fabric of our community. And I'm hoping that the biggest thing that it's able to do is provide shared experience that helps build relationships. That said, it will also help Western and terms are being more competitive because students who don't have cars will have access that will also help tie together availability of folks to get the medical care or go to the grocery store or do those types of things. And that will also, I think, add a little bit of novelty that might help on tourism and economic development. So if we do this, right, prove that we use it, continue to leverage relationships and funding and hopefully make our case, I think that is going to be the beginning of a very special activity,
I would just add to Representative Evans comment that I hear from our superintendent at Central School District, and I also hear from folks at Western Oregon University, how excited students are, are, and principals are to, you know, have, it's gonna really help students get around and on a couple of levels. And so that's the part that I'm really hoping to leverage is that we've got kids who, you know, might otherwise not be going to school. And we've got, as Rep. Evans just mentioned, we've got students who are at Western who may not have a car. And I think access and connection are the biggest benefits that are going to come from the service.
I agree entirely. What I'm super excited about is I mean, you think about a college student, you want to have as broad of extracurricular opportunities as you possibly can, while you're at college. And so we've got concerts downtown here in Independence, it just, it will enhance the student experience. And we're really excited for that. Another thing that I'm really excited about is like, I see so many kids walking up and down the highway, getting out of Central High School, and all of that stuff going to and from the gate and all those places. And what I think is going to be great is this expands their geography like fairly significantly, if they want to go do something in downtown independence or Monmouth, those kids will be able to hop on a trolley and get reliably to where they're going.
One other thought I was thinking about who I see walking up and down the highway, I also see people walking doing their grocery shopping. And so I can see there are going to be they're going to be trips for local shopping that I think the trolley will make so much easier.
So one of my thoughts is in any of the studies that are looked at in building in this trolley system, what's going to be the impact on traffic? Is that going to be a reduction in what you've seen in other cities.
I mean, conceptually, it makes sense that we're going to see fewer trips along the highway. Because like, especially during peak periods when kids are getting picked up from school or whatever, if there's an option to hop on the trolley, instead, potentially those trips are going to be minimized. One thing that I will say in terms of peak periods is we do have we hear a lot in both communities about parking in downtown, this is a great opportunity for us to, you know, help alleviate some of the parking issues in downtown when events are going on, people will be able to hop on the trolley or park in potentially satellite locations and get into the downtown, which will reduce the overall parking demand during those peak periods. So it should work. That's what we're anticipating but I guess we'll find out for sure.
Yeah, the plan is only as good as you know when reality hits it.
And from what I understand the majority of stops are existing chariot stops Is that correct? Mix
there's there are 12 stops on the route and some of them are co located with the chariot stops. I would say I think there are there four new stops and independents that are we're trying to make the stops a quarter of a mile apart because of the distance that a person would be as far as a person would be able or willing to to walk and so we used existing trip or existing stops and then I know there are two new stops in Monmouth one is at Main and Warren in front of the what will be the new city hall and the other is at Western Oregon University at Jackson and Monmouth Avenue.
We will stop at see second fifth eighth 12th and 16th which is an existing chariots stop
in the middle of the route the the existing chariot stops where it which is on the S curve and another one at 16. Those are existing chariot stops. There's an existing stab at Eccles Street in Monmouth. And then the hafley and Outwater stop in Monmouth are also existing chariots.
I did want to ask some questions that I'm hearing in the community. So maybe we can go ahead and set some things straight. I've been getting a question about Will there be a place for bikes and scooters on the front of the trolley? Are we going to be able to use those like we would other chariot transit?
Yes, absolutely. We will. There is a bike rack that will store two bikes
there will be space if someone ends up bringing their scooter aboard. So these
trolleys are ADA accessible.
Yes It's true.
That's great news. And one other thing, I think I heard that my net is helping out by putting Wi Fi in the trolleys is that something we can expect as well?
Yes, we're, we're grateful to my net, they, they're helping us with both cameras on the trolley, and they're going to be installing Wi Fi on the trolley. So you can ride and you can ride and surf at the same time.
And there's going to be also an app that the real time app that we talked about earlier, so people are gonna be able to see where the trolley is in real time,
just to assure that people know where the bus is at, they're going to be able to get on the phone, they're going to be able to visit the website, and they're going to be able to see where the buses located. So the where the trolley is located. So so they there's no uncertainty, there is nothing worse than waiting for a bus and thinking wondering, did it already pass.
And the service that we're contracting with is a company called Trans loc, and they're the one they're going to be creating that app so that whether you're on your smartphone, or you're on the website, you'll be able to go and see where the bus is at any one time.
And so just curious, between Marty and Fred, what have you to learn working together as we're two cities, right? One community working on a project like this over those City Lines? What's that been? Like?
I'm really grateful for the hard work, there's been a lot of thought that's gone into designing this pilot project. And, you know, we'll see how you know, where the demand is, and how that you know how that's gonna go. I'm, I'm excited about the potential for I said earlier connection, you know, between the two communities. And so, along the way, I've really I've learned a lot about what I think is our our two towns have in common that this Charlie can create a connection for,
I will say that they're part of the inspiration of this is the fact that we ran a train track between the two communities, it was the call that the biggest little railroad in the world or something. It was the IMM. It was it was the independence in Monmouth or the a&m Railroad. And I mean, it the communities in like 1890 had the forethought to build a rail line between the two because it wanted connection. And that's basically what we're trying to do with this project. It's like, we're looking back and we're saying, Hey, that was a good idea, then why don't we try something like that now. And I think it's pretty cool. One of the stories that I like to tell is, when that railroad went in, in 1890, there was a growth of a little community called Talmadge, right, which was right in the middle of the two communities, and there was a horse track out there. And there was like a lumber mill and everything there. And here, we have this project. And the city of independence is actually applied for transportation and growth management grant to consider the area around Talmage, which includes Central High School Central Plaza Shopping Center. And so we did get, we did receive a grant to sort of go in there and see what this transportation investment and potentially others would do to change potentially the look and feel of that area. And so so I don't know, I'm excited about things like that, because it really is, I mean, our goal in all things is to create a super livable, enjoyable, vibrant community. And I think both of us realize that this can further that like representative evidence and downtown Monmouth has a lot of cool stuff going on. Right? There's places to eat down there. There's I went to a Western Oregon girls basketball game yesterday, it was sweet. They were playing Western Washington, right, who apparently played for the national championship last year, right. So that's like good sports down the road. I couldn't have done the trolley after work made it to that basketball game in time. There are lots of opportunities to use this to just enjoy these communities more and more and more. And I think that the more that we all do that I think the more vibrant these places be, and just the fun that it's going to be to be here. So
we're building it so they must come.
Okay, everybody, thank you so much for joining us for our second episode of Monmouth monthly, we look forward to inviting the entire community to join us for the ribbon cutting of the trolley when that occurs. Stay tuned to both social media channels in your city newsletters the whole night and we will make sure that the community knows when this is going to happen. And we look forward to riding that trolley and thanks so much to my guest today. Fred Evander Marty wine and Representative Paul Evans who have done such a great job making this trolley of reality alongside a lot of other folks who've been sitting at the table with them. Thank you again for listening to Monmouth monthly next month we're going to be talking about volunteerism and how that keeps us city moving. We look forward to speaking to you thank you for joining in. Don't forget to rate review, subscribe and tell a friend. That's Monmouth monthly. Thank you so much.
Thank you for joining us for Monmouth monthly My name is Sabra Jewell. Our music is catching up by chill steady and we record it in the comments which is a co working community and independence Oregon. Please find us wherever you find podcasts rate review, tell a friend and we will see you next month.
