Where Are The Wise Men?

I wrote a letter to the paper on Sunday night about Omaha’s bus system. Due to recent “major events” in the state, it probably won’t ever get published. So I’ll put it up here in case a city council member reads my blog.

This wasn’t everything I wanted to say, but the World-Herald has a 200 word limit. 200 words isn’t very much.

I live out west and took a job downtown about a year ago. One of the things that made the decision easier was the MAT Express Bus routes. The bus picks me up close to my house, drops me off in front of the office, and the return trip is the same. The trip downtown is thirty minutes — not any longer than driving myself.

However, in the past year we have had buses that didn’t have any heat on sub-zero mornings or buses with no air conditioning on 100 degree days (and windows that won’t open!). The bus is also routinely late and sometimes it doesn’t show up at all! Not long ago, we had a wheel fall off while on I-80 that did not result in any injuries but very well could have.

In the recent World-Herald article, the director of MAT was quoted as saying, “Our focus is east of 72nd Street”. I would think in this day of high fuel prices, MAT would provide reliable service to where the population is expanding. Yet MAT has no plans to implement express or MOBY services to northwest Omaha nor regular bus service past 144th & Center. It’s a shame that a growing and vibrant metropolitan city like Omaha has no vision for public transportation.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.