(Warning: rant ahead) Why I throw my hands up at mass transit

[earnan]

I like the idea of mass transit, and I bus to work on occasion, but sometimes I just have to throw my hands up and wonder.

Read this article: http://www.startribune.com/local/east/104488439.htmlThere is a new line running from Forest Lake area to downtown St. Paul. Good idea. Lots of traffic for the bus to get past

Comments

[queenfrizzle]

Mostly, the overhead is in people cost. There's a lot that goes into transit planning, and there's this' and that's' that need done. Usually, that amount of money is a test-run setup. As they said in the article, they're going to be gauging the demand over a year-long trial with hopes that interest will pick up. So there goes money into public-transit advertising.

Yes, it costs a lot of paper money. But with the environmental and resource problems caused by people driving themselves to work, it's cutting back on a cost we can't just fix with paper money.

To directly address your two specific points,
1: You can't guarantee it's only 100 people. They're hoping to increase that once people realize that not only does the bus go there, but it goes there conveniently for only $3. And sure, 100 cars won't make or break rush hour. But it can make or break a person's entire work ability. Me? I can't drive (yet). If I lived in Forest Lake, there would be no college for me. If I were handicapped and not just temporarily broken, I wouldn't be able to get a job in the city. There are so many more reasons than cars to make public transit available.
2: The money, like I mentioned above, is people cost. How much do you pay a driver, per year? You can probably serve this route with 2 drivers (4 trips, each direction, timed in such a way that one driver can't just do all of them). And they have people to keep bus stations clean. And maintenance people to make sure all the buses are ready to go in time (more hours, there, with more active buses). Don't forget that there's still the fuel cost. That doesn't go away. A lot of costs go into bus routes. And starting a route always takes more. Signage, paper route time packets, training hours, everything. It's not just putting a driver in a bus and saying "go".

Yes, I realize you're ranting. But Public Transit is an MJ buzzword. So, rawr?