Apr 15 2008
Durham Wants You to Pay Their Bus Tab
DURHAM — City administrators want to take a long, hard look at the idea of dumping the Durham Area Transit Authority’s fares and making the system the second in North Carolina to allow riders to board for free.
The idea has support from the DATA Board of Trustees, and Public Works Department officials liked it enough to make it part of their annual budget request to City Manager Patrick Baker.
All involved say that while it’s unlikely Baker and the City Council will embrace the proposal in fiscal 2008-09, they hope to spark a policy review that could pay off a year or so down the line.
Isn’t that nice of the DATA Board of Trustees to offer the privilege of paying for their bus riders to the whole State of North Carolina, and maybe even the country if there will be additional Federal funds involved? Such is the Socialist way. They love to spend money on all of these great ideas as long as it is someone else’s money being spent.
The only municipal bus system that offers fare-free service in the state is Chapel Hill Transit. It dumped its fares in 2002.
Chapel Hill’s move is widely credited with sparking a massive rise in ridership on its buses.
Gee, you think? Of course the ridership sparked when anyone could just hop on board at someone else’s expense. Is this supposed to be an endorsement of DATA’s proposed thievery of the North Carolina taxpayers? The Durham City Council has already petitioned the General Assembly to allow them to raise their annual car tax to further subsidize public transit in their county, but I guess that’s not enough. They have to have something for nothing.
The people who should be paying for public transportation are those that use it, not the people who find their own private methods of getting around with their own money.
