Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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Without making any accusations, those numbers seem extremely high based on my experience of CTS… am I missing something?
CTS runs an excellent bus service and it shows. The Charlottesville-Ablemarle community is proving that we have the interest to take this to the next regional level.
I’m not sure where or how they got these numbers, but I don’t believe them for one minute. Everytime I see a bus it is carrying only the driver and one or two passengers. I know the bus that comes through my neighborhood is empty most all of the time and I have never seen more than half a dozen riders at any one time. The idea of mass transit is really a waste of good tax payer dollars.
Word problem:
If there were 2 CTS passengers riding the bus in 2004 and in 2009 there was a 50% increase in passengers, how many passengers would be riding?
At the City Council meeting July 6, Mr. Watterson, head of CTS, attributed the “success” to a remarkable increase in ridership from UVA students, faculty and employees, and the trolley. He also said he expects ridership to continue to rise by adding direct access to UVA hospital on routes 4 and 6 sometime in August. Whether there has been significant increases in ridership throughout the urban area was not mentioned, so I’m not convinced that expanding the bus service further into Albemarle County is going to be anywhere near cost effective. I haven’t heard any request for bus service to Woodbrook, Carrsbrook, Forest Lakes, Forest Lakes South, or Hollymead, for example. I’m not even sure if the residents would like to have a bus riding through the neighborhood streets.
I understand that CTS may not have performed as poorly as some of you wish it had, but it will surely take more than some anecdotal evidence of low-volume buses to substantiate a fraud accusation.
I’ve been avoiding some routes and times lately because, in fact, the buses are altogether too crowded. My office is directly in front of a bus stop (the McCormick Road stop), and I see hordes of people getting on and off the often-crowded buses, particularly in the morning and evening. As I write this, one UTS and one CTS bus just pulled up. UTS is empty, and I didn’t see what the load was on the CTS bus.
But, really, that’s neither here nor there. I’m told there’s 1.2 billion people in China, but I’ve never seen a one of them there. I guess could conclude that this is evidence of fraud on a massive scale. But that would be dumb.
I would be interested in knowing the demographic of these additional riders. Might it not be that we have an increase in the population of those who must use public transportation for whatever reason? Immigrants for example who have not gone through the process of obtaining a drivers license. Or low-income people generally.
I would like to see figures for those people who have the use of an automobile, but chose to opt for CTS instead.I have a suspicion it is not many.
This is anecdotal, but I often hear as the reason people don’t take the bus is that is too time-consuming, that it takes much longer to go somewhere on the bus than to drive because of how the routes are laid out and other delays. And we certainly know time is a concern of most people now.
For instance CTS can take almost 45 minutes to go from Downtown transit center to Fashion Square. Look at a schedule if you don’t believe me. Think someone will take the bus from downtown to Fashion Square when they can drive there in maybe a third of that time,especially if its not rush hour?
From the prior posts, I am getting the impression that the buses serving the University community have good ridership, and those buses that are serving neighborhoods are struggling.
“CTS runs an excellent bus service and it shows.” This past Spring, CTS ran a small survey and concluded that there are those riders who are satisfied that the service they receive fulfills their needs and there were others whose needs were not addressed. I don’t think “excellent” is the word that is most appropriate across the board. Here’s a link to the interesting study.
http://www.cvilletomorrow.org/docs/20090624-MPO-TJPDC-Toolkit.pdf . It also talks about those who have cars and will occasionally ride the bus (Hollowboy).
“The Charlottesville-Albemarle community is proving that we have the interest to take this to the next regional level.” The small survey did not address this fully. It did not ask what taxes would a person be willing to raise in order to fund regional transit. The answer to that question may make the difference. These are the possible taxes that have been determined by TJPDC: http://cvilletomorrow.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834519bec69e201157193a0c7970b-popup . From this article: http://cvilletomorrow.typepad.com/charlottesville_tomorrow_/2009/06/mpo_june_2009.html it is clear that the MPO and the RTA planning team are heading in that direction anyway.
It is my understanding that all UVA students ride the CTS buses for free. No wonder ridership is up.. I know city folks ride UTS buses around grounds for free…Used to do it myself…No ID nothing just get on and ride…Cville Eye you are right that riding the bus is too time consuming if you have any kind of life style at all.
When I’ve ridden CTS, they’ve been pretty strict about making me dig out my ID, to the point of holding up the bus until I’ve showed it. In fact, I once had to get off because I couldn’t find it (of course, as soon as it’ll pulled away I’d found it.)
As for it being time consuming, it’s no secret that parking for UVA employees is less than convenient unless you want to pay $70 a month. If you live on a CTS route, taking it directly to work is much faster than having to park in some far-away lot and walk or catch UTS.
How many ride for free or pay a reduced fare and how many pay full fare?
How much fare money does CTS take in during a year or 6 months? Probably very little. When I rode the bus years ago, and paid full fare, I saw very little money being put in the cash box. Usually folks just walked by the fare box, smiled at the driver and sat down for the ride.
these ridership numbers don’t mean anything to me other than there are a lot of free loaders using the bus.