THE Bus Not Convenient Enough To Be Effective

In San Francisco, I rode the bus back and forth to work every day. In Sacramento, I rode the bus home from work every day. Then I moved out of the city and I haven't ridden a bus since.

Why? Because as soon as I left the densely populated metropolitan areas, there were no busses to ride.

Sound familiar? It should, because that describes the unfortunate situation here in Hernando County. Yes, we have a bus system, and during the next few months loud voices will be heard in favor of keeping THE Bus for the elderly, disabled or disadvantaged who have no other way to get where they need to go when they need to go there. A few have been able to commute from one side of the county to the other, and a few have adopted a "park and ride" strategy that works for them.

Good for them, but what about the rest of us?

The main problem with THE Bus is that it does not now, nor will it ever, provide the kind of convenient transportation necessary to make it truly effective, at least not until the population of our county is much greater than it is now. Current TV news stories and interviews make it look like all we need to do is have more riders, which is the hope with gas prices continuing to rise.

Not so. Simply encouraging, or demanding, that more people ride THE Bus won't get it until the buses we have go where we want to go on a schedule that meets our needs.

Where public transportation systems have been effective, lots and lots of people live and work in a fairly small geographic area - lots of houses, hotels and apartments where people live; lots of offices, stores, shops, and entertainment centers where they work. In New York City, for example, because of the high population density and superior public transportation systems, most residents don't even own cars. Outside of the city, the commuter trains have become small societies of their own.

Actually, I liked riding the buses. I sat (or stood) next to the same people every day and met some interesting people. Some preferred to keep to themselves, so their desire was generally recognized and respected. It was cheaper than paying for parking, and on-street parking was not an option. In short, there were some decided advantages to using public transportation.

A couple excellent suggestions have been made recently about how to resolve the situation, not counting expanding the service, which just isn't going to happen in the current economic situation.

One is to run the busses on weekends to our beaches and parks. Make it the thing to do, to bundle up the family with all the required gear, enjoy the ride out, catch the bus back at the end of a fine day on the beach. This would mean many more convenient stops in the residential areas, an aggressive public relations program, but nothing that couldn't be done. Avoid the hassles of driving and parking and, as the Greyhound Lines used to say, "... and leave the driving to us!" Made sense then; makes sense now.

Another recent suggestion is to make THE Bus a true commuter service from here - the residential community - to Tampa, St. Pete, et al. - the working communities. We don't have trains, but surely our buses could be made comfortable and certainly less expensive to ride than paying $4 a gallon for gas or more to drive. Yes, scheduling might be difficult, but not impossible. The park-and-ride stations could be arranged.

The bottom line is that as it exists now, THE Bus is not serving more than a tiny fraction of the population of our county. All public transportation systems are taxpayer subsidized, but the question is always the value of the system to the community. Can we afford to keep it for the benefit of the small number of people who need it?

Gail B. Leatherwood

Spring Hill