11-20-2014, 03:59 PM
I don't think anyone on here disagrees with each other to any great extent. No one here thinks that all bus lines should recover their own costs, and likely no one here thinks that all bus lines should be required to recover an equal proportion of their costs. Probably very few people here think that transit is funded through general Regional revenues to the extent it should; most here likely feel that more resources should be procured for the system generally.
BuildingScout is right when he says "all we are left to argue is where we draw the line." That's true, we all have slightly different opinions about the balancing point between ridership and coverage. I personally think it is extremely damaging to the long-term goals of transit and sustainable development to operate a popular route in a part of the city dense enough to support frequent transit, and then to deny it enough transit resources to prevent crush-loads and drive-bys. I would agree that the best solution would be to procure more transit resources for those routes, but failing the political feasibility of that, I would suggest reallocating resources from social service routes whose few passengers are being subsidized to a greater tune, and from neighbourhoods that are not dense enough to ever support transit of any kind of frequency.
Is that so bad? The alternative would be to say to a dedicated transit rider in a dense neighbourhood that he has to withstand crush loads so that someone who has chosen (I understand that no one has infinite choice in where to live, and some less than others, but we do have some) to live in a sprawling neighbourhood can keep his hourly peak bus, even though he's one of only four or five people on it.
BuildingScout is right when he says "all we are left to argue is where we draw the line." That's true, we all have slightly different opinions about the balancing point between ridership and coverage. I personally think it is extremely damaging to the long-term goals of transit and sustainable development to operate a popular route in a part of the city dense enough to support frequent transit, and then to deny it enough transit resources to prevent crush-loads and drive-bys. I would agree that the best solution would be to procure more transit resources for those routes, but failing the political feasibility of that, I would suggest reallocating resources from social service routes whose few passengers are being subsidized to a greater tune, and from neighbourhoods that are not dense enough to ever support transit of any kind of frequency.
Is that so bad? The alternative would be to say to a dedicated transit rider in a dense neighbourhood that he has to withstand crush loads so that someone who has chosen (I understand that no one has infinite choice in where to live, and some less than others, but we do have some) to live in a sprawling neighbourhood can keep his hourly peak bus, even though he's one of only four or five people on it.