The PSTA, Defended

Just wanted to call extra attention to the interesting responses from board member Karl Nurse and from the planning director of the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority to my earlier post -- go to that post and click on the "Comments" link at the bottom. (I do challenge the guy's claim that my  column was not based on "facts," in my comment following his, but he has other stuff to say too.)

Comments

[Marissa]

I have a friend who takes PSTA almost everywhere she goes. She cannot afford a car right now. She hates it. Like you said, they go where THEY want to go, not where it is convenient for people. She ends up having to leave her apartment two hours if not more to actually get to work on time or where ever else she needs to go. I have never ridden on a PSTA bus and I am certainly not jumping up and down about the prospect.
I think they need to rebuild it from basically the ground up. I also think getting hybrid buses would be better, but I understand the downsides to that also.

[Senor]

The only reason I don't use public transportation is because I don't want to get stabbed.

[Jim Johnson]

Check-out a bus stop sometime to see who rides buses. Youre at the mercy of whoever jumps aboard. The experience is a blend of...clown-car and prison-wagon.

Karl Nurse is a load of baloney. He’s the mouthpiece of the local minions. The day the stop appointing him to their board (ie. payback for the mouth)… he’ll change his tune.

[Jim Johnson]

Pick any bus-stop you please, and it's a magnet for cigarette butts and trash left by the riders. I dont smoke. And little annoys me more than cleaning up the debris bus riders leave. The bus line doesnt clean up the mess, I do.

Thank you Jim. Now, can you clean up our corrupt local government?

[John]

These were fun comments!

Regarding the people on the bus:

I have ridden the bus in Pinellas County and yes - I see those "questionable" persons referenced here. But I also see mothers, fathers, students, nurses, blue collar workers, white collar workers, black people, white people, asians, hispanics, doctors and lawyers (with their bikes), retirees and every other kind of person in the world. Sometimes I wonder if the fact of the matter is we finnally arrived at the point where people object to anyone not exactly like them. Oh, and for the record, I've read about a lot more car accident fatalaties than I have "stabbings" on the bus. Has there been a rash of local assaults I'm not aware of?

Regarding Service:

Public transportation serves the public, personal transportation serves individuals. Yes, public transportation can be inconvenient and yes locally this is true more often than not. But there are reasons for that - outlined in the earlier PSTA thread. I was in New York recently and took a train to the bus, the bus to the right area of the city, and then walked 5 blocks. This is a city with one of the best transit systems in the world and it still didn't go exactly where I wanted it to go.

Regarding the mess at bus stops:

My next door neighbor has a stop in her front yard and yes - we spend a fair amount of time cleaning up there. But we spend the same time in my front yard - where there is no stop. Perhaps the debris is a result of living on a fairly busy road, hence the reason the bus travels along it. When things get real bad (as they have on occasion) we called PSTA and they did send someone out to clean up. Though it would have been faster to just do it ourselves.

Bottom line? Urban living baby - gotta love it!