Letter: Asheville bus system needs cash infusion

Graphic by Lori Deaton

Last week I took the bus for afternoon shopping on Tunnel Road. Unfortunately, my return bus heading back downtown passed me by with a banner signed “Full Load.” I ended up waiting 45 minutes for a bus to stop and pick me up.

Asheville is in dire need of a new injection of dollars for transit. Many times ART’s W1 and W2 buses to West Asheville are running late. How can we hope to get people out of their cars to combat traffic congestion and climate change if the transit system is so lean that you have only 30- to 90-minute service frequency to most places and full buses nearly any time of day?

What if the Tourist Development Authority put advertisements on bus shelters and on buses? Better still, the TDA could invest in the “billboards” by purchasing new bus shelters and hybrid-electric buses. If we want to solve traffic problems and impact climate change, we need to make transit clean, on time and frequent enough to attract commuters, shoppers and tourists alike.

— Kurt Schroeder
Asheville

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10 thoughts on “Letter: Asheville bus system needs cash infusion

  1. Enlightened Enigma

    local geography and lack of density causes these problems….we should just contract with Mountain Mobility to cart the indigent at their whims, instead of trying to
    run so many EMPTY buses… most of the time they are empty…

  2. Bright

    The so-called “bus system” has had so many “cash infusions,” that they should hide in shame, in the bathroom at the Transit Station…

    • Lulz

      The million plus being spent at the downtown terminal is a waste. And shows how much of a farce the whole thing is. All about the show. Especially since those in charge of spending the money don’t use the transit system. Maybe when the cronies have actually experienced it over the course of a long period, then they can make rational decisions about it. Until then, their knowledge on it is guesses and ignorance.

      • Lulz

        LOL and yet is in denial that many of those cars around here are from out of town. Oh I see. Let’s force locals on the buses so tourists can run around unimpeded. That way we can claim the green mantra and have good feels while tourists can spend. Sort of like downtown pretending it’s all about shopping locally but in reality becoming more corporate each day

  3. Robin

    Please, oh please don’t give ART any more cash to squander. Asheville transit is indeed a need, but the group running it now are incompetent fools who can’t manage to open a paper sack, much less manage a complex transit entity. In my last communication with them, the lady I met with was barely understandable (English was clearly her second language), and the fancy-haired geezer in charge has obviously never been a public transit patron.

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