Dear Editor: The city and Madison Metro only looked at one side of the equation in trying to remedy Metro's budget problems. Instead of raising bus fares, they should have been assessing ways to increase daily and monthly bus ridership.
Raising fares is counterproductive to raising ridership and will just make matters worse for Madison's bus riders, the city and Madison Metro. They should have learned that from the last time they raised the fares, two years ago.
Metro's own projections show that increasing fares will reduce the number of riders. Eventually, this will lead to reductions in the number of bus routes as well, just like the last time. Mistakes have a way of being repeated by those who don't learn from them the first time.
To keep fares affordable, Madison Metro should have instead worked on expanding its service to communities outside of Madison. Substantial increases in ridership could have been gained by making transit available to people who now commute by auto to Madison regularly.
With the ever-increasing price of gasoline, now would be a good time for officials in Dane County to initiate contact with one another to get the buses rolling. This would lead to larger ridership numbers and relieve Dane County's highways and air quality from the burden of too much single-occupancy driving to Madison, while reducing the pressure to increase bus fares again in Madison.