Here is a link to a story from the Los Angeles Times: "Riding the Bus Changes Her View."

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/27/local/la-me-bus-snob27-2010feb27

This link is for the Snob on a Bus blog mentioned in the article.

http://snobonabus.blogspot.com/

City Council Approves Transit Master Plan

The vote was 6-1. Changes will not happen all at once, but as funding and opportunity allow. Now is definitely the time to elect transit-friendly city council members...Have you voted?

Get There Asheville Urges City Council to Approve Transit Master Plan

I'm posting this from Get There Asheville in its entirety.



Get There Asheville urges council to approve Transit Master Plan
Monday, October 26, 2009 By Hanna




Asheville city council this Tuesday will review the eagerly-awaited Transit Master Plan, which calls for significant improvements to the transit system including Sunday service, more frequent runs on popular routes, the elimination of the day-evening service gap which currently strands workers downtown, a crosstown route linking West Asheville with the mall and Super WalMart and new service to places where our neighbors live, work and play, including the French Broad River Park and Biltmore Town Square.
Along with the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan and Downtown Master Plan, the TMP will provide an important foundation for Asheville’s multimodal transportation network. But the council needs to hear from you: Please plan to join us on Tuesday at 5 p.m. at City Hall to show your support for this critical document. (And stay tuned for details on a post-meeting party to celebrate the plan’s passage.) If you can’t make it to the meeting, consider sending an e-mail to our city’s leaders telling them why you believe in a smart transit system: Click here to send a message to council members.
Thank you for your support, and we’ll see you Tuesday!

Asheville City Council to vote on Transit Master Plan

Asheville City Council votes on the new Transit Master Plan tomorrow night. Here is a link from Asheville city council candidate Gordon Smith's newsletter regarding this news. I like his point that while the plan isn't perfect, it's a good start...will increase frequency on main routes and initiate Sunday service. Also I believe if I read the plan correctly, it calls for a new route on Long Shoals. I hope that happens sooner rather than later. There's a party after the vote, so come one come all.

Here's the link:http://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/email/newsletter/1410073751

Please Vote in City Council Election and Check Out Get There Asheville

There is a new group in Asheville called Get There Asheville. Their mission as stated on their website:

....To Amplify the Voice of those who support building a local transportation network for the 21st century...As Get There Asheville, a coalition of citizens involved in local transportation policy, we are dedicated to making this election a winning one for our city's many walkers, cyclists and bus riders...


They have already held two candidate forums. If you haven't voted yet I would encourage you to their website and read the City Council and Mayoral candidates' responses to transportation issues. The site has been a little difficult for me to navigate...but be persistent and you can get to the info you want:

http://getthereasheville.com/?page_id=2.

Looks like they have one more meeting before the election on October 30, 5pm, Get There. We Vote. We Count. Pritchard Park in downtown Asheville.

I'll add more about this group if I can find out more. Also to see if they plan to be active after the election. In the meantime, please vote for candidates that will help Asheville improve our transit system!

First Ride in Awhile

Rode the bus today for the first time since Bele Chere in July. It was a beautiful windy fall day. A nice day to walk up to one of the Haywood Road bus stops. The ride into town was quite uneventful. Not very crowded. Mixture of quiet people including a cute baby in a baby carrier and a toddler sleeping in his Daddy's lap.

Ride out of town was quiet and uneventful also, except for a short delay at PVA due to a potential rider standing at the door of the bus yelling to her friends to come on if they wanted to get on the bus...her friends didn't show up so she eventually waved the driver on. By the time we got back on Haywood Road I think there were only 4 of us on the bus. A shame.

The most recent transit news is that the Weaverville-Asheville route is in danger of being terminated. City council is apparently considering if it can be saved. Here's the link:

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091024/NEWS01/910240325

I don't want to see routes lost. I want to see routes added and more people riding!

PS. Let me clarify. Ken rides the bus to work with some regularity. It's just me who has fallen off the bus wagon. I am still going to figure out how to ride it to work someday. In a new post I'll lay out the logistics of getting somewhere where the bus doesn't go.

Wednesday's child

As the old saying goes, Wednesday's child is full of woe. Not me, not today. Nor does this Wednesday's child have far to go. Lately, I've been working every Wednesday, but I have been free of other duties which would require a car. So: to the bus stop. This morning I hoofed the .4mi up to the business district so that I could catch #1 bus headed downtown. The riders were a sorry and sullen lot. This was 10:30ish, after all. We should have been happy! After days and days and days of rain, our fair city was experiencing sunshine! But nothing could turn our frowns upside down. We weren't particularly happy, but we weren't fired up either. We were quite a contrast from the unhappy lot that rode a #9 bus one day last week.

One day last week I hustled away from work a few seconds early so that I could be "on time" for #9 as it left the transit center headed west. Ha ha. "On time" in this case meant about twenty or twenty-five minutes late. What a joke. After waiting so long at the station, I boarded the bus. I reached for my county ID to show the driver. Oops-- a credit card. I held the line up for about ten seconds while I fished out the county ID. The bus driver asked me "how long you been waiting for the bus"?

I said, "maybe twenty minutes".

He snapped back with a near-automatic "In all that time, you could have already had your ID ready". Ouch. Snap.

I could not help myself: "I don't suppose the bus could have been here twenty minutes ago, could it have?"

Oh, but that's not his fault, he was quick to respond.

I just walked away. No, I suppose that it was not his fault. But it's somebody's fault. Did anyone walk on the bus and apologize to the riders for the error? Of course not. Is anyone accountable?

By contrast, I work in a public facility. Suppose it was a bright and sunny day. I'm not talking about a snowy day when the roads are bad. If, on such a bright and sunny day, our agency opened its doors twenty minutes late, inconveniencing dozens of people, we would find some way to apologize. We feel like we're accountable.

It's not about me. I wasn't in a hurry. Ho-hum so what. But what about the people who are depending on this bus to get to work? To get to their children?

I do feel sorry for those people. They deserve better.