In Georgia, poor people stranded by car culture

masstransitmag : "The lack of public transportation in Glynn County was identified in the last year as the No. 1 challenge the community faces. Studies have linked poor public transportation directly to perpetuating poverty and joblessness in Glynn County.

"Over 30 percent of the children in Glynn County live in poverty households and 45 percent live in single family households," Ennis-Roughton told the BATS members and Don Masisak.

Masisak is with the Coastal Regional Commission and recently presented a proposal and cost estimate for a transportation system.

Ennis-Roughton said further that, "Car ownership is not economically feasible for the majority of those living in poverty, an issue exacerbated by the fact that Georgia ranks No. 1 in the nation for the cost of car ownership," she said in the letter, citing a CNN report. "Isolation from community assets and resources, including youth activities and health services, keeps the impoverished community stranded in a repetitive cycle of hopelessness.""

CARTA announces half-a-million dollars in funding for public transportation

Live5News.com : "Sen. Marlon Kimpson and Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority officials today announced $500,000 in funding from the S.C. Department of Parks Recreation and Tourism for public transit in the Lowcountry.

Sen. Kimpson worked in the Senate to secure the funds, which will be used to tangibly improve the transit experience for hundreds of thousands of residents and visitors beginning early next year."

Arkansas - Service frequency critical to #publictransit ridership

NWADG : "Layza Lopez-Love, a Los Angeles native who works at Community Clinic in Springdale, attended Tuesday's meeting. Lopez-Love said she has not used public transportation in Springdale, not for lack of desire, but because of lack of availability. She frequently rode the bus in Los Angeles, and if she could improve anything about Springdale public transportation, it would be expanding the frequency of bus routes.

"I often hear from other people who use the bus that it runs so infrequently that they are often waiting outside," Lopez-Love said."

I-65 choking on cars, #publictransit "only solution"

Nashville Public Radio: "“The only solution is to look at some kind of public transportation system,” Graves says. “From my perspective and I think a lot of people in this room, we need TDOT to engage more with transit and not just talk about roads and bridges.”"

Missing from #publictransit funding debate, buses save more than they cost

Tampa Bay Times: ""It was pretty clear in that ordinance language that we're talking about a road-intensive plan," said Commissioner Stacy White."

Spending more on roads fixes nothing. Yet public-transit advocates keep losing the funding debate. Investing in buses actually saves money... and saves even more if they are fare-free. But the true costs of the auto and sprawl culture do not get into the debates. So the sprawl profiteers win again and again.



we show the true costs of the auto here

McKinney, TX, car culture doesn't work for poor, old, disabled

Dallas News: "The move has left some residents stranded.

Justin Mann and his guide dog, Garvey, arrived at their McKinney home on a TAPS Public Transit bus on Oct. 8, 2015. (Ashley Landis/The Dallas Morning News) Staff Photographer
Mann relied on TAPS to get from his McKinney home to work each day in Frisco. For months now, he's bummed rides from friends and family. He's resorted to using a SignUpGenius page to connect with volunteers willing to drive him each day.
Sometimes, he takes Uber to work. A couple of times, he's stayed at a hotel in Frisco when he knew he wouldn't have a ride.
He moved to the northern Dallas suburb in 2011 to be closer to his parents in Gainesville. He researched public transportation options before the move and landed on McKinney. 
"Had I known what I was dealing with now, I would never have moved here. Ever," he said."

Texas town bus ridership up 24% with fare-free plan for students

Valley Metro seeing ridership boom: "Ridership on Valley Metro, the bus service which spans an area from Brownsville to Zapata County, is forecast to be up 24 percent over last year.
“Primarily it’s because of partnerships we have with South Texas colleges — UTRGV, STC, TSTC,” said Tom Logan, Valley Metro’s director. “The students, the faculty and staff have really started taking advantage of that service, and that’s where we’ve seen that growth in our ridership numbers.”
And who wouldn’t take the bus? For many students, faculty and staff, rides are free with a valid college ID.
Yet the numbers suggest these new riders don’t account for all of the ridership increase."

Cape Girardeau Co. transit proposes free bus rides

KFVS12 : "At the meeting, Mogelnicki said ridership increases every year, but if ridership becomes free he expects it to grow.

"I think a lot more people would ride the bus if it was free," transit rider John Tinsely said.

He said after going to Kansas City and seeing the light rail run for free, he said why can't Cape Girardeau do the same thing.

"I like it, right now we're in between jobs, so it would be easier for us to ride transportation, we're just now moving here to Cape from Charelston and it's hard for us to get back and forth I think it's a neat idea," transit rider Beria Willis said.

Some city council members said it would be a positive thing for the community.

"I think $2 would make a lot of difference between some people. mean we don't have a bunch of money like [Willis] said we're in between jobs and we're just struggling to get by and we take the bus everywhere we go, so I think it would make a lot of difference," Tinsely said."

Arkansas - bus frequency very important to riders

Report Recommends Improvements To City Public Transportation: "One of the recommendations is to increase the frequency of buses. Something riders agree with.

"Every fifteen minutes they should have the buses, on Saturday and Sunday," said Andrews. "

#Sprawl has left poor-people stranded in rural south

times-georgian.com: "The findings of a recent survey show there is a need for a rural, countywide, door-to-door, pay-per-ride transportation system in Carroll County. The survey was led by John Lebowitz who has spent past year as a member of the Board of Commissioners Public Transit Study Committee. "

Dont Miss the Bus Tennesseans Organize for Better Public Transit

Public News Service: "MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The number of people taking public transit in Tennessee is on the rise, according to the Tennessee Public Transportation Association, and citizen groups are beginning to organize to make sure their city maintains and improves its local bus service. This week, the Memphis Bus Riders Union met with the area Amalgamated Transit Union Local 713 to discuss how cuts to bus service and route consolidation are affecting their communities. "

People are afraid to take the bus because of threatening car traffic at bus stops

Longview News-Journal: "Then there's the fact these journeys take more planning, more time and, sometimes, more reliance on the human kindness of our neighbors. Consider having to wait an hour to be able to start — or continue — your journey because that is when the next bus arrives.

But if we wonder what it is that keeps more folks from using public transit, we should acknowledge that factors such as feeling unsafe standing near traffic whizzing by on major thoroughfares while waiting on the bus plays a role. So does the fact some of us tend to look down on those who ride the bus."

Montgomery County Texas discussing #publictransit upgrade

Community Impact Newspaper: "Oak Ridge North Mayor Jim Kuykendall said upgrading the county’s public transportation system is necessary, adding that the county should designate a public transportation manager to take the lead on any initiatives."

Residents seek expanded transportation options in Longview, TX

News-Journal: "A woman working with homeless families in Longview didn't have to think twice about what's needed in local transportation Monday.

"My main thing is, we need more," Longview Interfaith Hospitality Network Case Manager Martha Nichols said, early in a public input session for a five-year update on transportation needs in a 14-county region. "We need more buses, we need more hours (of operation) in the day. We need for routes not to take quite so long. ... I would love to see it (operate) seven days.""

Austin Cap Metro offers one-day free rides to promote #publictransit

'Austin Don't Rush' Asks Commuters to Use Public Transport: "AUSTIN -- Central Texas commuters are encouraged to take public transportation, carpool, or work from home Wednesday.

It's an initiative called "Austin Don't Rush."

The campaign is intended to relieve congestion on Central Texas highways.

Capital Metro and the Capital Area Rural Transportation System will both be offering free rides.

"If we could all take a bus or a train, we're gonna take a lot of cars off the road and make it easier for people to get where they need to go," said David Marsh of the Capital Area Rural Transportation System.   "

Louisville, KY, "There's money available to fund transportation, we're just using it to fund transportation by car is the problem"

WDRB 41: "
"There's money available to fund transportation, we're just using it to fund transportation by car is the problem," Kolb said. "If we continue to have a transportation mindset in the 50s, we're going to continue to fall farther behind."..."You can't just talk about investing in public transportation,"Meyer said. "You also have to have complete street design and access to that transportation.""

Mobility is closely tied to equality, problem is, equality is not, nor has it ever been, a goal in the US.

The Austin Chronicle: "I commend Mayor Steve Adler for attempting to make better transportation a priority in Austin. I agree with him, and with U.S. Depart­ment of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, that mobility is closely tied to equality. Foxx was quoted in a March 29 Washington Post article as saying, "Trans­portation for a long time has been seen in the light of something that is connected to opportunity. If we don't appreciate that and figure out how to do better, I think we're going to constrain our ability to grow our country. Everybody has got to have a shot." Foxx recalled growing up in a poor, black Charlotte, N.C., neighborhood: "Free­ways were there to carry people through my neighborhood, but never to my neighborhood.""

#Freetransit passes a big success and Northern Arizona University

Best Practices: University Partnerships | Mass Transit: "Serving the NAU students is an important part of NAIPTA’s mission, but it is also estimated that about 40 percent of Flagstaff’s population travels to and from the NAU campus each day for work or school. With limited parking on campus and relatively high parking permit fees, NAU and NAIPTA have partnered for several years on the ecoPASS program. NAU purchases highly discounted transit passes for all of its 2,800 employees, giving them the opportunity to have access to free public transportation. In 2015, NAU ecoPASS holders accounted for nearly 82,000 rides on Mountain Line, keeping those individual vehicles out of the congestion on campus."

Forget odd-even, make buses fare-free and frequent.

A lot of time and money is spent researching the obvious. People want clean, safe, and frequent buses. Buses are slow because roads are jammed. Only 14% commute by car, but they take up at least 40% of the room on the road. Make the buses fare-free and ridership will jump 20%. Have more buses on order.

Firstpost: "Existing bus users want more buses to be added to the system and do not expect any major systemic law-and-order overhaul, our research implied. "

Tennessee realizing the need for #publictransit

TN: Middle Tennessee Transit Alliance Continues Transportation Talks: ""We realize that in the future, what's going to behold for us is the problems of spending most of your life in a car on the interstates trying to get to work or around town," Craighead said.
...You can actually be from Lebanon and into downtown Nashville faster at rush hour on the Music City Star than you can on Interstate 40. That's on a normal day and anyone who commutes on Interstate 40 knows the number of normal days you'll find," Bland said.
...The biggest complaint we get about the Star is there simply isn't enough service," Bland said.
..."We have more and more industry that's coming and looking at us. If we can bring some of the employment from Nashville, we have to make sure we can get them to work and then get them back in a timely fashion. We have a lot of ideas and a lot of plans," Craighead said. "



'via Blog this'

FREE PUBLIC TRANSPORT IN MIAMI: YES, WE HAVE!

I'ts Up to Me Blog: "Can you imagine getting around in the city, in an electric bus, with air conditioned, wifi, clean and for free? Or touring through several neighborhoods in a vintage tram, also air conditioned, clean, with wifi and free, too? Here in Miami, it's possible!
There are two modalities of free transport. The Trolley and the Metromover."

US still moving briskly in the wrong direction - sprawl accelerates in Austin, TX

bizjournals.com : "And downtown Austin is indeed a more popular place to live than ever. However, contrary to the popular narratives, Redfin Corp. finds that Austin homebuyers are actually moving farther from the urban core, rather than closer to it. That's bad news for traffic, which is cited as one of Austin's biggest problems."

Atlanta sprawl fueled by racism

A post-automobile world?: "“The white people in the suburbs saw MARTA as a way for black people to come to their counties, and they didn’t want it,” Atlanta Magazine writer Doug Monroe told the HPR. The common refrain among suburbanites was that MARTA stood for “Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta,” he said."

Georgia newspaper calls for more public transit, fewer studies

Editorials | valdostadailytimes.com: "Leaders don’t like to talk about poverty in their community. 

Let’s be honest, we have significant poverty in our city and metro area.  

Affordable public transportation provides an essential service, especially for those trying to climb out of poverty who may not have other means to get to work, doctor’s appointments or take care of other family needs. 

Pretending this problem does not exist does not make the problem go away. 

Funding a massive public transportation system is daunting, and frankly is probably not possible. 

A public-private partnership, or even a partnership with Valdosta State University, is far more attractive than a government-run system that would not operate efficiently and could be a black hole in the budgets of local governments. 

The pilot shuttle program, however, has demonstrated that an expanded, permanent, shuttle-type service could have a significant positive impact on the community. "

Before business relocates, they ask, "got transit?"

Ketron pitches mass transit bill: ""That sends a message to the rest of the world that we're open for business," said Ketron, who noted that industries want to know that sufficient mass transit is available before they bring operations and jobs there. "We don't want Austin, (Texas), to get ahead of us, and I think that's who we're competing with.""

Want millennials? Got #transit?

pilotonline.com: "They gravitate toward urban living that is walkable, bikeable and has easy public transportation. More than two-thirds of millennials place high-quality transportation in their top three concerns when evaluating where to live, according to the Rockefeller Foundation. Three-fourths expect to live in a place where they will not need a car."

Uber teams with Florida city on public transit test

Daily Mail Online : "Altamonte Springs has budgeted $500,000, partly from local businesses, for a year-long study during which it will pick up 20 percent of all Uber rides in city limits, and 25 percent for those to or from its SunRail station.

"It is infinitely cheaper than the alternatives," said Martz, whose city has a population of about 43,000 and median income of $50,000. "A mile of road costs tens of millions of dollars. You can operate this for decades on $10 million.""