Our last post indicated our relief that the morning paper had finally printed something which seemed to support what we have been saying about the various proposals on public transportation.
Alas, this morning’s paper carries two lengthy stories promoting the use of an "express" bus service along the "Palladium to stadium" route.
We’re treated to the information that the service was started with a $1 million dollar federal grant. Now that the the price of gas has gone down, the grant has run out and the price of the ride has gone up, ridership has fallen off (18 people on a bus with a capacity of 50+ on the author's test ride) to the point that another $220,000 federal dollars are now being used to cajole folks into abandoning their cars.
The author found the trip to be a real "way to go." (He especially found the view of sunrise through the big bus window "breathtaking.")
But he also admitted that if your Indianapolis destination is more than very few blocks from the Circle, you are destined to join the unfortunates who will still be trying to get to work on poor old IndyGo.
We, of course, still remember the $10 million federal "transportation" money that’s being blown on actually reducing street capacity downtown. Remember Georgia Street?
We’re still opposed to raising taxes and putting more than $2 billion in the hands of people who have such priorities. We think it likely they would first set up rapid transit to/from the suburbs, then initiate multiple "light rail" lines, finally set up new routes for IndyGo, and then run out of money before they could buy new buses and hire their drivers!
Joe the plumber still couldn’t get to work in Lawrence from Irvington, but the sunrise over Fishers would still be a killer.
They all want our national, state, local and private debt-based Ponzi scheme to continue until it implodes. We would be better off blowing it up now, at least we would know that the shrapnel was about to hit.
Posted by: Larry Calloway | October 14, 2011 at 07:57 PM