New Drive for Transit

Tonight I read an article about "New drive for transit" from the Sheboygan Press about weather the Sheboygan Common Council should take the $2.1 million federal stimulus money for the 35-foot buses and other equipments which would replace aging, polluting buses with new more efficient friendly emission buses. It was voted 8-7 at the September 21st meeting. Even though the majority is 8-7, the vote is not enough to pass for the for the federal stimulus money for the buses. It would required 11 votes or two thirds of the council to pass.

I think the council made a good decision as far as not accepting the federal stimulus money for the five Sheboygan transit buses because there are not enough people riding the buses. There are almost bus stop at every corner, but you only see like 2 or 3 people inside the buses. The busy season of the year for people riding buses are usually during the school season. But people are not really using the buses during the summer season where when school is over and students are off school during that time. Money should be well more spent on other more important thing such as hiring more teachers because we need to educate our children more than weather we should replace old buses or not that people don't use it.

On the other hand, I think the Sheboygan Transit officials should have a better routes planning before accepting the federal stimulus money using for the 5 new buses that would replace the old buses because some routes don't directly take the bus riders to the exact destinations and riders would still have to walk a short distance to their destinations. By using smaller buses or even cargo vans would to transport riders to the exact locations. This system would make more riders want to ride the buses/vans, save the city more gas money and would cost less money to maintenance the smaller buses/vans.