Friday, February 17, 2006

Strike 3

First they cancelled the 2:30pm 8 Browncroft bus and turned it into a Wyand Crescent!

Then I was left hanging at a bus stop, because there was an overflow of teenagers heading to school for midterms (this wouldn't be a problem if the Rochester city school district would just stick to cheese buses for all of its students).

Now....NOW RTS has done it! They have decided that they will eliminate the 15 cent transfer, which allows bus riders to transfer from one bus to another, without having to pay another $1.25 for bus fare. They decided to drop the stupid day bus pass from $4.00 to $3.00 with a planned increase to $3.50 in October. At one point "Ridership was up"! At one point there was talk of decreasing the amount of the bus fare. What......All of a sudden ridership is down? Is the poor transit service loosing valuable customers, or are they trying to make money so they can build the terminal in downtown Rochester? I don't see how getting rid of the transfer is going to help bus riders. Some of us rely on the bus to get where we are going. Base fair is $1.25 and the transfer is 15 cents. That is a total of $1.40! If I am just going to one place (lets say to see my doctor), and then head back home, it would only cost me $2.80, with the transfer. Eliminating the transfer and making me get a day pass, which I won't really get any use out of is a waste of some money (not much, but still a waste) When the pass goes up to $3.50 in October, it will be a waste of 70 cents per day. It won't affect my bus ride to work, but it will damn sure effect my doctor's appointments, my trips to the movies, visiting friends, etc. Sometimes I wonder if businesses look for excuses to make more money. Trust me 70 cents will have an impact on people making minimum wage. I wonder if getting a car would be any better?

4 comments:

DesLily said...

I get it and I agree.. I'm so old there once was an upper class, middle class and lower class of income for people... not so much anymore.. middle class is now becomming lower class workers and finding it harder to eat and survive.. I can't imagine how it will eventually be.. i guess i'm glad i'm old and won't be here to see it...

Emily Suess said...

We don't have much of a transit system here in Indy, but I'm still terrified to use it. It's not complete strangers that scare me--it's getting lost that does!

Chris said...

That reminds me of when they recently raised the utility rates here because consumers are using less electricty.

Demand is down so we have to increase the price?????? Wow. No wonder Enron was so screwed up.

Chris
My Most Recent Entry 2/17/06

Ari said...

That really bites. If they lower rates, more people would want to use the transit system.

Still, I think it's cheaper than owning a vehicle. With a car, you not only have to pay for the car, but for gas and insurance too. I wish we had a better bus system here in Quincy. I used to ride the buses all the time in college, but not so much now.

Ari