Service Is The Key To Increasing Ridership

Wisconsin State Journal :: OPINION :: A6

TED VOTH JR.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006


Metro Transit has two constituencies:

"Luxury" riders, whom Metro and the city cater to, and

"Riders out of necessity," whom are by-and-large ignored by Metro, though we testify at public meetings.

The luxury constituency are the suburbanites, relatively well-off white folks on the whole. They have one or two or three vehicles in their garages. They find it convenient and inexpensive to commute to their 9-to-5, five-day-a-week jobs by Metro and then take their own vehicles out for the weekend.

We riders by necessity have no vehicles of our own -- some of us by choice, some of us out of the poverty. We have no automobiles.

Our bumper sticker would read "My only car is a Metro bus" if we only had a bumper to stick it on.

I'm talking about those whom many Americans would really like to just go away -- the lower-income people.

They're striving just to get in on the game. They're the people who go in late at night and clean up the buildings where respectable folks work during the day. They're the ones who work early in the morning or on weekends in service jobs while the better-off recreate.

I hate to introduce the race issue, but it's so inextricably tangled up with economics. Yes, we do have a class issue in America, and it's only getting worse. But I must say many of us riders-by-necessity are black, and many of us are Latino, and you'd be surprised how many of us are "white," whatever that means.

We riders-by-necessity see the "dark side" of Metro. Metro over the past few years has been committing suicide by progressive self-amputation. Metro comes forward and asks for a fare hike, which nobody likes. But it's regressive: The poorer you are, the harder the fares are to pay.

Then, predictably, in six months Metro cuts services. Either they cut routes such as the 10 and 11, which, when we checked out the figures, turned out to have been among the most-ridden routes in the city, or they trim back evening, morning and weekend routes.

And this cycle of service slashes will continue.

You can promote and "market" Metro until you're blue in the face. But in the face of this cycle of suicide, who's going to believe you? Good service, dependable service, cheap service and frequent service are needed every day. This tangible quality of service is what'll sell Metro.

Let's hope the city, when we hire our new bus boss, finds someone with imagination and much more sympathy for Metro riders -- all of us. It's going to be a tough, possibly impossible job for anyone to do.

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