It's 6:00 in the morning and I'm already pissed off watching the GTA bus drive away!
That said, if you're going to have poor people in cities like Greensboro, where all the poor live across town from the only available jobs then no matter what your views of mass transit, urban sprawl or global warming, city buses are a necessary evil. From the News & Fishwrap:
"The Greensboro Transit Authority will consider the most extensive service cuts in the 23-year history of its bus system in an effort to address a $2 million budget shortfall.
The city staff has recommended a full slate of changes, including scaling back night-time bus service across Greensboro and increasing bus fare $1.50 to $2 by 2016.
These are changes that the city staff said would render the bus system less effective, and possibly less popular, with its ever-growing number of riders.
And these cuts would fall about $600,000 short of closing that budget gap."
In the meantime, Greensboro remains the center of the 2nd hungriest Metropolitan Statistical Area in the US, has a 21% poverty rate, highest unemployment in the state, can afford to spend $30 plus Million on a Performing Arts Center and has $272 Million Dollars in the city savings account.
This isn't about budget shortfalls, it's about misplaced priorities and "leaders" who don't care about the working class. From the same article:
"About $390,000 of the $2 million budget deficit comes from the City Council shifting a portion of property-tax revenue to a new economic development fund."
You can't have economic development without getting the workers to and from work. It's called robbing Peter to pay Paul.
You think there's not a revolution brewing here in east Greensboro? Just wait until all those GTA passengers can no longer make their 2 hour bus rides to Greensboro's few jobs on the west side of down and remember downtown is within walking distance when you're angry enough.
