Out of service
A good public transportation systems can be a thing of beauty. When I have travelled to cities like New York, Chicago, or San Francisco, it has always been great not to need a car, and to realize that pretty much any hour of the day or quite late into the evening, I can pretty much get anywhere in the city by hopping a bus or train, for a couple of bucks. At worst, maybe you have to wait 15 minutes or transfer somewhere, but it is very nice to basically be able to go anywhere you want at any time without needing too much planning.
Lawrence, the smallish college town where I live has a fledgling public transportation system. It suffers from some problems, notably that busses run only every half-hour and the system shuts down early in the evening. One of the major obstacles to growing the public transportation system is that it is just under the threshold of being useful the way systems in larger cities are -- the routes and times are infrequent and scattered enough that you really need to plan in advance your whole trip and time things; you can just walk a few blocks and hop the next bus that comes by. All of this is why it is sad to see that the city government of Lawrence essentially voted last night to kill the bus system in Lawrence for good, but cutting its hours so it stops running at 6:00 PM. This will make the system useless for anyone who used it to get to and from work. Ridership will decline further, and the system will lose more money.
The city should either increase the bus system by running more routes at longer times, in order to make it something that people can rely on and actually use, or they should be honest and shut it down entirely, because a vestigial, weak, worthless bus system is actually more harmful then none at all.
Ironically, two obvious solutions to Lawrence's transit problems are off the table. First would be a small increase in property taxes; amounting to about $50 per year for the average $300,000 house. That would cover bus improvements and a lot of other city budget problems we're having. The other solution would be a merger of the city system with the university's bus system, which would benefit everyone, but the university and city have gotten into a pissing contest and this probably won't happen either.
Oh well.
Lawrence, the smallish college town where I live has a fledgling public transportation system. It suffers from some problems, notably that busses run only every half-hour and the system shuts down early in the evening. One of the major obstacles to growing the public transportation system is that it is just under the threshold of being useful the way systems in larger cities are -- the routes and times are infrequent and scattered enough that you really need to plan in advance your whole trip and time things; you can just walk a few blocks and hop the next bus that comes by. All of this is why it is sad to see that the city government of Lawrence essentially voted last night to kill the bus system in Lawrence for good, but cutting its hours so it stops running at 6:00 PM. This will make the system useless for anyone who used it to get to and from work. Ridership will decline further, and the system will lose more money.
The city should either increase the bus system by running more routes at longer times, in order to make it something that people can rely on and actually use, or they should be honest and shut it down entirely, because a vestigial, weak, worthless bus system is actually more harmful then none at all.
Ironically, two obvious solutions to Lawrence's transit problems are off the table. First would be a small increase in property taxes; amounting to about $50 per year for the average $300,000 house. That would cover bus improvements and a lot of other city budget problems we're having. The other solution would be a merger of the city system with the university's bus system, which would benefit everyone, but the university and city have gotten into a pissing contest and this probably won't happen either.
Oh well.
Labels: lawrence
posted by Mike at
12:00 PM
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