Madison Metro is trying again to make riding the bus more convenient, and once again a shopping center owner is crying foul. This time it's Madison Joint Venture, a front group for the Cleveland-based Richard Jacobs Group that owns both East Towne and West Towne malls. The mall owner is squawking about Metro's plan to locate transfer points at the back of both malls, calling the plan "unacceptable." "Our suggestion basically is that the use of mall property should be looked at again," said Michael Lawton, a local lawyer representing the mall owner, during a public hearing this week. The publicly stated concerns of the mail owners are the usual arguments raised against Metro transfer points:' safety, liability, traffic, use of private property, failure to be told of the plan in time. But it doesn't take a genius to read between the lines. Metro riders are probably not the kind of people East Towne and West Towne want hanging out in the malls. I'll wager the mall owners would embrace a plan to bus sorority girls out from the UW campus, clutching daddy's credit card. Similar arguments against bus transfer points were made four years ago by the owners of Hilldale Shopping Center, who complained that adding a bus hub would create "traffic problems" and take parking spots away from potential customers. There was also concern that bus riders might — gasp — come into the mall to use the public restrooms. What's curious is that most stores generally want additional foot traffic or potential customers near their doors. Apparently the poor, minority, elderly or disabled who make up a portion of the Madison Metro ridership don't fit the model of the white-bread suburban shopper. The mall owners also seem to have forgotten their responsibility as corporate citizens. Public tax dollars, after all, have paid for the exit ramps, intersections and wide roads that make it easy for shoppers to drive to the mall. The police and court system that deal with shoplifting at the malls are also publicly funded. But this anti-bus attitude is not surprising, given the Richard Jacobs track record. The company, which owns numerous malls in the Midwest, has also been dead set against bus traffic at a mall it owns in Racine. Anyone familiar with the city knows that Madison Metro needs a shot in the arm. Ridership has slipped to 9.5 million each year, down from a peak of 13.5 million in the early 1980s, despite the growth in city population. One ongoing problem is the route structure that requires a downtown transfer, often turning what should be a 15-minute ride into a 45-minute ordeal. This system worked well 25 years ago when much of the shopping and business was located downtown. But since then, the city has grown on its fringes, and the bus system has failed to keep pace. The newest plan would add eight transfer points spread out over the city and would allow riders to change buses at various spots instead of being funneled downtown. I was in Washington, D.C., last weekend and got a chance to use that city's Metro train. For $1.30 you can get about anywhere in the city hi minutes, and you wait in a heated shelter. The system is such a success that businesses now, advertise their proximity to a Metro stop. Landlords are able to charge more rent for apartments served by the Metro. While Madison doesn't have the population density to support a subway system, a revamped bus route could make Madison Metro attractive to more potential riders. And more riders mean fewer cars on the road, which might even reduce traffic congestion and free up parking spaces at the malls for the "right" kind of customers.
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