I have a company truck that I need for work so I never take the Bus, but
this letter to the paper today has always summed up my thoughts to those
"others" out there who tell "us" to ride the bus. One time our community
even held weeklong meetings to discuss transportation in our town, but
the reporters of our towns paper busted all of them because they were
driving big SUVs with no passengers.

____________________________________________

Your plan is great except for one key issue, it assumes that people are
actually going to ride the bus.

True, there are many people who do ride the bus. I am one of them
myself, but it is a necessity, not a choice. As soon as I have a car, my
bus riding days are OVER!

To RFTA's credit, they are a very reliable way to get around. For the
most part they run right on schedule all the time which is more than I
can say for any other bus system I have encountered.

That being said, it's still a miserable experience riding the bus. They
are crowded and loud. The buses themselves are loud, and there is always
someone with earphones turned up so much that you can hear what they're
listening to clearly enough to recognize the artist and the song.

Often there are less than pleasant surprises. Just this morning I got on
a bus and started to swing into a seat, but I stopped when I saw a
chewed up apple core sitting squarely in the middle of it. Once before
-- no joke, this really happened -- I sat down and saw a greenish yellow
substance on the back of the seat in front of me. I made the mistake of
scraping it off with my finger -- boogers. I'm not kidding. Disgusting!

At night it's even worse. Going to Basalt at 10:15 p.m., there's no
longer an express bus. You have to take the local, so it takes about 40
minutes from Rubey Park to the Basalt Park and Ride, painfully long
after a 12 hour day. I swear the bus makes every stop between there and
Basalt, but what makes it worse is the drivers turn the lights on at
every stop. All the riders get on and turn off the small overhead lights
immediately. It's late, everyone just wants to sink into a cave-like
darkness and zone out until their stop. But no, every mile or so these
bright florescent lights come screaming on bringing you back to the ugly
reality that you're on the bus.

It's awful! Call me a spoiled American but I hate it, and I plan to
ditch this mode of
transportation at my first available opportunity.

Save a tree......ride a pushbike.

Ooooooohhh!!! I can't resist...

Save a soldier...walk.

I meant to say our community leaders held meetings about transportation
needs of the community, they were the ones driving big SUVs 50 miles
away with no passengers.



to soldiers, there not supposed to be there in the first place,
remember?

I agree..so if we all just walked or share drove for one week,
collectively, imagine the oil surplus....


And in no way am I condmning one country....just the whole darn planet,
me includud.

I posted this kind of late.

Do others have anything to add to transportation and Buses in their
area....kind of boring topic, but maybe in between the would you do the
person above you, you might have something to say about this.

In the area I live at the middle class subidize the buses to bus the
poor downvalley citizens up 50+ miles to go service the super rich, 2nd
homeowners.

any thoughts?

No push bike for me

nice bikes..but maybe this government will tax the shiq out of you so
others can use the vomet machine.