I think Mike's alarm was perfectly in order. As a member of the Transit & Parking Commission, I would think I would be privy to at least as much if not more info about pending changes in the transit system as the average citizen. Yet it was not until I opened my packet for Monday's meeting on Saturday evening that I discovered that the Route 11 was being eliminated. There was certainly little in what has been termed by one observer the "confusing" public hearing notice that would have explained that the unexplained "expanded" Route 38 would do at least as much as what the 11 currently does. Having been unable to attend today's meeting for medical reasons, I still don't know if this is the case, although I have been assured it is so.
Mike's alarm was quite justified, inasmuch as Metro also gave no indication at all in the notice for last month's public hearing that Route 10 was being replaced by Route 9. And only after much public outcry did Metro come up with the rerouting of the #s 3 and 9 that will make the elimination of Route 10 acceptable . . . . . and then the following month we discover Route 11 is also biting the dust. Under the circumstances, alarm is certainly understandable. Perhaps both oversights by Metro were just that, but because both of these routes being eliminated were heavily used circulator-type routes that get people on the near-east side (some of the heaviest users of transit in Madison) to the university area in favor of something designed to increase ridership by people on the far east side (something that we may all wish for, but do not currently experience--count the number of passengers on the #3, for instance, at Atwood & Fair Oaks vs. Jenifer & Paterson if you're in doubt), I would hope Metro would do more to notify and warn people in the near-east side neighborhoods that changes are planned for their popular bus routes before panic sets in, and to reassure these riders that they will not be negatively affected. Put another way, I think Metro should worry more about keeping people along the Jenifer and Gorham St. corridors happy than those people who choose to live in the mostly car-dependent Richmond Hills, if it needs to come down to a choice between one of the two, which it should not. tim wong ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael D. Barrett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 2:55 PM Subject: On bus #11 and a partial mea culpa > It has been brought to my attention that the 38 may well replace the > 11 in terms of timeliness, efficiency and connectivity--everything we > know & love about the 11. > > Thus, a partial mea culpa. > > I apologize for an incomplete analysis and perhaps, an unnecessary > alarm. At least, I hope I was wrong in my last posting, because this > looks to be a decent improvement. > > This is only a partial mea culpa because the source of my confusion > lay in the way the information was a) presented at the last minute > and b) incompletely presented on the map. _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
