THE NEED is real, although far from new. Persons with disabilities in the unincorporated area of Floyd County who are unable to drive themselves, or without family on constant standby, have severely limited opportunities to fully participate in the community.
That the Floyd County Commission has established a special committee to look into extending public bus service to them is a worthwhile effort but one that is fraught with peril and caution signs.
Commissioner Chad Whitefield, who is heading up the effort, it quite correct in saying that “It’s going to be real difficult for us to do anything without the city’s assistance. It’s too expensive to start a separate system.”
Yeah, and it’s probably too expensive for Rome to keep operating the transit system that it’s got. Wonder if Whitefield has seen the numbers on the deficit it runs annually. Indeed, were it not for the Rome buses doubling as the school system’s transportation — a situation the county doesn’t have — it is doubtful taxpayers would long continue to willingly support what little public transit there is.
Besides, this is a very large county with what’s actually a fairly sparse population. The advantages of urban density do not exist, and even less so in the unincorporated area.
THE PROBLEM for the county is that the needs of the disabled are but the tip of a large iceberg. If getting them to work, school, shopping or whatever were the only need it might be handled by on-call vans, perhaps subsidized by government money but operated by a nonprofit with volunteers. The Rome transit operation is a full-bore government operation — equipment, drivers, upkeep and so forth.
In Rome, where the fares keep going up and the buses keep getting smaller (some of them look like pregnant vans) the argument is that the poor need them to get to work, seniors to go shopping and so forth. And much of the time they still look like they’re running near-empty.
The same reasons for public transit exist in the county — except distances are even greater and, in a time when fuel prices are soaring, there’s going to be no way to do this sort of an expansion on the cheap.
Certainly, running a bus route into a contiguous next-door area — many old-timers remember when the buses ran to Lindale, for example — makes some sense if the funding is handled from outside of Rome. Remember, as a city transit operation is it only Rome taxpayers who now pick up the added cost.
THOSE NUMBERS, in a citizen environment rather hostile to added new permanent taxes, are apt to be a bit scary and perhaps downright terrifying if running regular bus service to Cave Spring and Wax and Shannon is contemplated.
The city and county have had considerable success in joint ventures but for the most part these have been ones that largely pay their own way or have support because they are of equal value to everyone (like fire protection). Public transit would be different. It would serve only a few, though a deserving few, and it likely could never pay its own way.
The initial approach should probably be to bite off a little chunk of this problem. Certainly, the city should be in the discussion from the outset — after all, as the county likes to point out, all Romans live in Floyd County too. And, as regards to the disabled, talk of “buses” should be scuttled from the outset. All that’s needed is vans, or an on-call taxi-type service.
A more general-purpose bus service is something else entirely — and with a much, much larger overhead and cost.
“PUBLIC TRANSIT” is actually a code term meaning “something that can’t possibly make money or break even otherwise the private sector would already be doing it.” Airlines and Greyhound are private transit ventures for which taxpayers don’t constantly pay. Amtrak and MARTA are not.
Being good neighbors and friends to the disabled does require that local government examine what more it might be able to do. That does not mean there’s an obligation to go broke doing so.
|
No Related links found
|
