According to Governing, mass transit is in trouble, at least in the bigger cities. There are two reasons - the pandemic and a growing trend towards remote work. While I'm sure the lockdown imposed by Governor Tom Wolf hit LANTA hard, I see no rush to remote work here in the Lehigh Valley. In fact, as someone who occasionally uses mass transit, I've noticed an increase in ridership. I attribute this to rising gas prices. LANTA received $12.5 million in funding under the American Rescue Plan Act, and a whopping $21.6 million from the CARES Act. Why not use some of this windfall to help riders with reduced fares between now and Labor Day?
As a senior, I ride free. My experience is that the service is fairly reliable. It takes me about twice as long as a drive, but I can use that time to catch up on email. What's more, buses have bike racks, so I can ride part of the trip if I want.
I know some folks would have to make two or three transfers. The solution there is to drive to or near one of the transfer points and use the bus for the rest.
Both counties still have CARES Act and American Rescue Plan money. I believe they could do some real good for working people with limited incomes by helping LANTA with whatever shortfall it might claim to have in funding this project.
I believe reduced fares probably make more sense than a gas tax holiday.
15 comments:
I know that LANTA was at one point selling the 31-day pass for 5 bucks. Is that still in effect? That was a real deal, and the way do do that.
You have no right to politicians' money. You must be new here.
What's good for me is good for thee.
Your situation is much different than many of your readers. The problem with public transit is we are no good at it and no one wants to pay for it. In most European cities its cheap easy and efficient. Partly because countries like Denmark tax the living shit out of cars and party because people are willing to pay for something that works. We're good fatty food, public transit, not so much.
Decline happens quickly, as we've seen in the last 18 months. Explaining and rationalizing the decline is trickier business. Bernie is doing his best and has his hand quite full. Thank you for this depressing suggestion to help people through our depression. Every little bit helps when things are this bad.
This is all well and good, but where LANTA is truly lacking is the van service it provides to people who are physically compromised and must get to appointments. An acquaintance told me a story about how unreliable the service has become and that her father has missed dialysis appointments due to a lack of drivers and scheduling errors. Dialysis! A man I know relies on LANTA Van because he is paralyzed. After an appointment, he was taken right by his house, but told he wasn’t the next stop, so he went on a three-hour ride around the Lehigh Valley before finally getting home. His worried family kept calling LANTA for information, but never got through to someone. LANTA is terribly mismanaged, but reducing fares will just be smoke and mirrors (such as lifting the federal and PA gas taxes). As bad as LANTA is, it needs to fund operations and goodness knows PA needs its gas taxes to maintain its lousy roads and fund the State Police.
LANTA still has a 31-day deal for $5, but my understanding is you only get it once. Then it's $60 for a 31-day pass
I think an additional reason for the increase in ridership are enhanced levels of service provided by LANTA particularly at night and on weekends. With expanded service and better technological improvements, riders can now ride more often and know exactly in real time where the bus is and when it will be at their particular stop. I've been riding more myself due to the better level of service. It's so much cheaper than driving.
I agree that some of the night service is amazing. You can ride from Nazareth to Bethlehem until around 10:30 pm on weekdays and even on Saturdays. About an hour, which is not bad at all. There are also apps like mystop that will help plan a trip.
Historical Lanta only went to part of the places that people really needed it to go to. It has catered to select organizations like FEDEX but on the same route screwed the other companies which had been workers to use the service. Look at the map sometime and you will be amazed where it does not go and who it does not support. Workers companies and industrial zones are many times left out of a public transit solution.
There are companies in the Lehigh Valley who run their own shuttle service for workers because Lanta is no help.
I forgot the link to the Lanta Map
https://www.lantabus.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/LANTA_System_Guide_2018_Map_Only.pdf
In our region our workers work regardless because we are on the front edge of ECommerce and retail in all these warehouses.
A good way of ensuring that I refuse to publish a comment is by starting with "You probably won't publish this ... "
9:42 Would you like a coloring book?
The $5 monthly COVID pass can be purchased every month--there's no limit. Please talk to LANTA about plans for fare analysis going forward--director Owen O'Neil is a wonderful source of information and very thoughtful on these issues.
Also, LANTA van has a new contract provider as of July 1.
Regarding the $5 monthly pass- it’s not limited to once and done. It’s $5 every month for unlimited rides. It’s a great deal. My child has the app on her phone and renews it once a month because it’s necessary for her to get to school since the district does not provide transportation.
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