By: Diane Benjamin
The Board is meeting today. They will see another month of losing more than $1 million!
Connect spent a lot of money on consultants:
The below pays the Working Group consultant who didn’t finish the job – original cost $53,000 (This is the group where Chris Koos is on the Board of Directors of an off-shoot organization https://blnnews.com/2020/08/07/did-koos-con-the-connect-transit-working-group/ )
The Cardinal Infrastructure consulting monthly report is an addendum, fascinating reading about happenings in DC: https://www.connect-transit.com/documents/Meetings/Packets/Final%20AddendumConnect%20Transit%20Federal%20Update.pdf
Why does Connect have to advertise? People can’t see the huge empty buses all over town?
Advertising isn’t helping ridership:
PDF page 21 recaps ridership by route. Every route shows a decrease from last year, many dramatic.
With ridership down, how do they explain this one?
Fares are going to be suspended again until March 8, 2021 now. PDF page 23.
Even FREE can’t get people to ride!
My favorite:
Banks still cash checks with one signature even though they know 2 are required. Allowing more people access to checks sometimes doesn’t end well.
Smart Growth America original cost: https://www.wglt.org/post/connect-transit-board-modifies-pink-route-hires-facilitator#stream/0
Keep beating a dead horse (connect transit). But not with a whip or bat, but with rolls of cash. I will say one i found out banks dont care who signs a check, as long as it clears. A banker told me that. The name(s) signed on the front doesnt even have to match the name in the upper left. Ridiculous.
Has anyone else gotten stuck behind a “slow rolling” bus?
Since nobody rides the bus some drivers are slow rolling to their next stop in an effort to stay on schedule. Others just stop in traffic at each stop to allow the imaginary riders to get on and off.
Driving 10 MPH under the speed limit and stopping in traffic for no reason are both are dangerous practices making the driving public hate Connect Transit even more.
CT is the BIGGEST blunder since the square wheel!
Connect Transit is an abysmal failure. In a community with an average commute time of 8 minutes, John/Jane citizen has no incentive or desire to take public transportation on a pre-determined, fixed schedule set by government bureaucrats. It should be run as a social service agency that serves only those most in need and most vulnerable. Of course, it’s hard for the elitist ideologues and those feeding at the local big government trough to admit the failure of CT, so why not throw another million down the rat hole. As for the advertising, that’s the City and Town halls making sure the local media doesn’t question CT or dig into its wasteful spending and horrible track record. Don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you.
OK! I will state a SIMPLE fact here which I think we can ALL agree with. THERE is a place for public transport and CT! such as it is. But we MUST do away with these big and non economical busses and go to a SMALLER version of bus that is WAY more proper for OUR twin cities and ridership. Plain and simple. No sense driving a cattle car around when all we need is a simple bus that will carry 15 or 20 people. AND these are the folks who PROFESS to be DEMOCRATS and want to SAVE the PLANET by using less of everything. BUT, these are the busses they run.
OXYMORON at its BEST!
MAYBE MY voice will be heard, but II doubt it!
The CT waste needs to end. CT should be a campaign question for everyone running for mayor and council.
Where is the auditor that should be making sure two people sign checks as required?