You know Prop One: the narrowly defeated proposal to raise sales tax for local bus service, threatening evening and weekend service. I initially blamed the loss on selfish voters, but I think it's more complicated. The tri-county bus/light rail/rail system also depends on sales tax revenue but doesn't face a similar financial crisis. Why?
Granted that the tri-county express routes are more efficient, but probably more telling is an observation from a couple of days ago: Waiting at the bus stop I watched 4 local buses pass--it's evening rush hour, downtown, the buses heading out for separate residential destinations. They should be crowded, right? I counted the number of passengers in each: 4, 16, 7, 6.
Tri-county transit on the other hand, just announced quarterly ridership numbers: up again, around 12% increases in each of its lines, following similar increases the past few years. My morning against-rush hour express bus often is often more than 50% full.
So the problem may be that this county just doesn't get it--the public transit thing. As expressed by one of my co-workers, "only poor people ride the bus."
But they're stingy, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment