We need to get the state on board to fund more. The bus tax they fund almost died in recent years and the state house is now more Republican than it was then. So this means more suburban support for transit is needed to keep this tax around.JBmidtown wrote:
just kidding. But for real though, there has to be some alternative option to federal grants.
When 60% of the east side and 60% of the northland vote against things together it's hard to get big enough citywide taxes.
We need to start with a comprehensive bus system that isn't only downtown centric so we can grow citywide interest in transit in general.
We keep trying to build something we don't even have bus service for, a true north to south rail spine. Why haven't we done this with busses yet?
Not one bus from the northland goes south of 27th or east of downtown except the casino bus and I wouldn't say it serves the east side. Why would someone from Liberty ride the bus to the plaza if they can only get to within 20 blocks without changing service. It's supposed to be an express route. Even what's there isn't scaled right, we've never come back and tried to even serve new populations well. The Shoal Creek/Liberty line has seats for around 80 riders daily. There's around 60,000 nearby residents. There's no true E-W service across the northland like on the super busy 152 to connect Liberty to Tiffany Springs despite that the city keeps promoting that industrial district and adds tons of new homes to the corridor.
And it's not just the northland. There isn't good east side coverage into NKC with tens of thousands of current and potential jobs. To get from most of the east side to NKC is a two bus trip and then walking/biking on the far end. This is such a huge missed opportunity for urban renewal. I can't believe we haven't connected Indep Ave directly to every industrial area within easy reach and the Plaza. We had a vote to do this with rail and we haven't done it with a bus yet.