* Tim Erickson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [081704 23:17]: > ------------------------------------------------- > Senate minority leader presses for LRT figures > > http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/9426168.htm?ERIGHTS=-1718147958032628597twincities > > "Minnesota Senate Minority Leader Dick Day said today that he is > frustrated with what he called Metro Transit's "inability" to > promptly release revenue and cost data for the Hiawatha light-rail > line's first month of service." > > -------------------------------------------------
--- And he challenged Metro Transitâs methods for estimating ridership, saying its practice of counting rider on some trains and extrapolating a total number of riders is not as accurate as counting individual ticket sales. --- Which is a really crap way to count passangers in this system *since* metropass and upass customers *do not* interact with the fare systems at all. Many, many commuters working for businesses downtown have such passes. This is just a way for him to get numbers that don't match ridership and then claim that its all hogwash that they have ridership, which they do -- because lots of metropass users work downtown. I personally know two people at the university who are using rail to get to work and both are metropass/upass users. I would be hard pressed to find a student or employee on campus not using either program if they are heavily using transit. (The university helps us pay for it with federal grants and parking fees.) --- Day called Hiawatha "a train to nowhere" and said many passengers appear to be riding it for noveltyâs sake, "like they are at Disneyland." --- I'll admit, I'm guilty for doing this with my mom in town. But, I *have* used it a few times for real uses myself. I don't live in the path of the rail (I'm more of a Northstar Rail sort of person up here in the North Metro, yay for the continued funding!) but I have used it to take a trip down to see my friend out in eagan (I took my bike and went across the river, etc, ended up popping my tire on the way :|) I highly doubt so many are doing so for fun though, many of the 'one-timers' are more likely riding it to twins games, etc -- alleivating parking and traffic stress downtown. In any case, anything Senator Day gets out of Metro Transit will prove some point he thinks he has, why can't he just come up with some bogus numbers (through research!) instead of subjective stories? :) -- Scott Dier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> KC0OBS http://www.ringworld.org/ _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Metropolitan Issues Forum http://www.e-democracy.org/tcmetro Rules: Sign posts with real name. You may not post more than twice a day.
