The End is Near
Yes, that’s right. The end is finally near. At least, for my express bus. You can see the complete list of Metro system changes that will be effective March 30, 2009. It seems they are eliminating every express bus route. I didn’t look much further than that, because the rest of the schedule has little effect on me. That means, if I continue to take public transportation, my commute each way to work just went from 19 minutes to 46 minutes.
I understand, somewhat, the elimination of the express routes. Even though they are generally pretty full, they are mainly occupied with monthly pass holders and thus their revenue per rider would be less on these routes. Still, they are losing many loyal rider and some significant revenue. I feel for them trying to balance their budget. I know this is a terrible time for them to go through this with ridership being up and they are trying to keep the service that gives them the most revenue per rider. Hopefully there will be a day when the tax revenue to the system will increase and we will get better bus service back in the city. The changes aren’t just effecting the county, they are effecting the city quite a bit as well.
Personally, I have half a mind to buy a second car and take I-44 downtown to work just to add 1 more car to clog up traffic for those St. Louis county people who didn’t see the need to support our public transit system.
On a side note, I met Mayor Slay for the first time last night (he’s pretty much guaranteed to show up during an election cycle). He was at our neighborhood association general meeting. He made the rounds shaking hands and saying hello. His first stop when he walked in the room was to my son and one other kid playing over in the corner. My son didn’t know who he was until we told him later. He made a few brief remarks at the start of our meeting. It was really a brief stump speech about some of his accomplishments. He’s a rather good public speaker and you can tell that he really does genuinely care about the future of the city. The fact that he was out in 10 degree weather at a neighborhood meeting with 20 people is also a sign that (like he said) he’s not taking his re-election for granted. It’s a very short election cycle for Mayor, so I’ll have to start looking over the other candidates to see who is worth voting for this time around.
