City Increasing Spending on Public Transportation

At the last City Council workshop, the Council reviewed the proposed public transportation plan.

The city staff has initially focused on a fixed route bus plan, but, the council had previously asked if vouchers could meet the demand for disabled persons using a ride sharing service like Uber or Lyft. The staff said it looked very promising, but, further information and analysis would be required before they would make a recommendation.

They were directed to proceed with information gathering and analysis.

With respect to the fixed bus route, two council persons were opposed on the grounds that the city lacked sufficient population or population density to make fixed bus routes feasible.  The other four council members and the mayor were in favor of proceeding to sign a contract with Capital Metro to provide the bus service.

Therefore, the city staff is proceeding with implementing the plan.  It will cost $542,540 in FY-17 with Georgetown supplying $277,157 and the remainder coming from the Federal Transportation Administration.  That will provide ten months of Capital Area Rural Transportation (CART) service, which is supplied on demand, and two months of fixed route bus service.  Here are the proposed routes:

No one has seemingly asked the following question.  Why is it the responsibility of the City (Taxpayers) to provide some people transportation, but, not others?  Who gets to decide who gets subsidized transportation and who does not and what is the criteria?  City Council?

This seems like another wealth transfer mechanism to take money from the many (Georgetown taxpayers), for the benefit of the few (bus riders).  Once this system is entrenched, it will grow in size and cost and will not be able to be terminated, even though new technologies make it obsolete and costly to operate.  Automous automobiles will be available on demand within the next five to seven years according to many prognosticators.

At least some of the council members acknowledged that this is a subsidized service that will never pay for itself through fares.