Bus stops like these are unacceptable. Where do we stand to wait? What about rain and snow? These are the questions someone who needs to ride the bus should be asking themselves.
I have interviewed my grandmother along with talking to people who have ridden the bus in the past. One of the main aspects that leads to people not taking the bus is just how unreliable it is. This is something that parallels with The Omaha News coverage on it, along with the thoughts of Dr. Abigail Cochran, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Oftentimes, the argument against not funding the bus system is low ridership. Why should the city pay for something that little to no one uses? To rebuttable that question, I ask is the ridership lower because of how bad the system currently is? Shouldn't public transportation get more funding to increase ridership?
After all, the city knows that making the bus free during voting increases the ridership by 15%. Something as simple as lowering an already cheap cost down to nothing invites 15% more people, just imagine if the barriers such as no bus shelter, or unreliability were removed. How many would ride then?
I have interviewed family and friends who have ridden the bus in the past, and the second main reason behind them no longer ridding the bus was because of how unreliable it is. My grandmother has often waited for an hour for a bus to arrive.
According to the Omaha Community Foundation, the only two census tracts that have some access to jobs in close proximity are Midtown and the Crossroads Mall. They provide 45,000 jobs within a 45-minute period or less via public transit, but that is only 28% of all jobs in Omaha. What about the people who are deep in North or South Omaha? Suddenly, to have a job in these areas, you have to pay for a car and not everyone has that. Along with that, it is not guaranteed that your trip will only last 45 minutes. What if it is not one of the 4 routes that has a wait time of 15 minutes? What if you miss your bus by minutes or seconds?