I’m writing to voice my displeasure of the change to 40 minute cycles from 30 minutes. I proudly rely on public transit, because of how it points to my personal commitment to sustainability and reduce emissions in our environment.
However, the change to 40 minutes is really inconvenient for me and had a major impact in my life. 30 minutes, was trying enough, but 40 minutes is a real problem. I have to travel during business hours, and thus I can’t avoid travelling outside of peak hours. I understand that the reason for this change is to help with meeting connections.
Can I suggest, at peak times changing to every 15 minutes and change the non-peak hours to every 40 minutes. If someone missed their connection – they would only have to wait 15 minutes as apposed to 30 minutes as it was before. Not perfect, but an improvement. I realize that this includes increased costs, and could mean increased bus fares, and I am willing to pay this for the convenience. I am ignorant of all the issues involved in why this change was made, however, please consider the incredible inconvenience to me, and having to pay my babysitter more $$ because I can’t get to her home until after 5:30 pm.
Throw this issue back out to our community and ask for a vote on whether we would support paying more $$ for improved services during peak hours – I think you would be surprised at the result. I believe that we would have to pay for improved services, and don’t expect it to come for free. I also realize there is a fairly high contingent of unemployed passengers, that may be concerned about the change in schedule, but may be more concerned about the cost of increased bus fares. Is it an option to leave the bus passes the same cost, but increase the ticket/on the spot paying fares?
Did you model this change from what other communities are doing? CR