This is in response to Neela McDades' June 6 letter, "ART Connects People With Resources," which congratulates the new bus system for connecting the poor to food pantries. This is a good thing because, since ART started on May 21, more people have lost or been forced to quit their jobs due to lousy service.
The buses start running later in the morning and stop running earlier in the evening than before. Many drivers are now forced to drive like maniacs in order to try to get their passengers to their connections, which are almost impossible to make now. I live on Majestic Avenue and observe that the C bus constantly drives way over the speed limit in that residential area. The drivers that did qualify for early retirement did so rather than deal with this mess. The one thing all riders have been requesting for years was for Sunday service and that never happened. The majority of the daily bus riders are the working poor, many of whom work in the service industry, are required to work on Sundays and can't afford cars.
If you use the bus system to get food from the food pantries, according to the rules, you are limited to what you can carry on your lap, ensuring we keep Asheville's poor slim and trim. Thank you City Council, for the new ART.
— Monique Turoff
Asheville
Hey, they just want to “get people out of their cars.” What’s YOUR problem?
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That’s the irony of ART – they want to “get people out of their cars” – but because the service is now so impossible, it is going to put MORE cars on the road, as we now can’t get where we used to get to by bus!