DART’s smaller bus leaves some passengers out on the street

by PegNews wire

About three weeks ago, DART started using a smaller bus (a short bus, if you will) on Route 841. This seems like a reasonable way to cut costs until you realize more people ride that route than there are seats on the bus. Oops. But oops doesn't help the stranded passengers who show to work an hour late because there wasn't enough room on the bus. DART's official word is that they change routes every six months after input from passengers and they are still mulling over it to see if it's a temporary problem or not.

Posted by Laura S.

Staff
Verified User
Anonymous

interestedcitizen, says:

A private transit system, with a competitor,concerned about profits and survival, would not have made this mistake. A competitor would have come in and filled the void.

Why no private transit? you ask. Because DART has carved out for itself a monopoly. It operates at an annual $400,000.00 operating loss. It can't build up a capital replacement fund. Contrary to its promise to survive on local funding, it now routinely goes, hat in hand, for federal funding. There are no private competitors because they are priced out of the market by a massively subsidized, money losing operation.

The solution? Return to private transit. Open the floodgates to competition. Some will be excellent. Some will be poor. A lot fewer people will be walking the streets because they will have opportunties to afford private transit service with older cars, after entry barriers for private taxis are lowered.

We create our own problems by looking to the government for solutions that should properly be the domain of the private sector.

And we dare to call government solutions bold and innovative.