“The bus people won’t let BSU’s shuttle use the new transit center, so they dump commuters at curbside near the Clearwater building downtown.”

The transit center was never big enough to hold all the buses. I counted 11 buses staged on Idaho and Main at peak hours before the transit center. The underground only holds 8 buses.

They’re always going to have to stage some on Main, hence the bus lane there.

Furthermore, there’s been lots of discussion that buses may become obsolete in the near future. At least in small cities. Boise should look at becoming the first to provide or contract out a fleet of on demand self driving cars. They could even be electric or CNG. I’m sure some cronies could benefit too.

One reason people don’t use buses is they’re not and can never be on demand and door to door.

(It’s pretty easy to overlook all the other expenses of motor vehicle ownership – maintenance, insurance, parking, car payments (!!), etc., and just think about that trip to the gas station in making transportation decisions.)

Several years ago the ACHD president publicly disclosed a letter of intent to divest ACHD from the Commuteride program. I have mentioned this here before.

In a post here on the Guardian, this past January, Commissioner Baker stated she would like to return Commuteride back to VRT, but “VRT doesn’t want it”.

This letter states, “VRT has been unable to make a compelling case
for moving away from a successful program. ”

Successful?
WHAT?
There it is. Once again, government bureaucracy prevents management from admitting mistakes and failures. Like Trump, just say it’s successful and beautiful and the people will be oblivious.
It’s right up there with VRT employees banishing citizens from the public terminal (video and story here previously). Annnnnd not admitting the terrible employee actions.

Successful?
1/3 of the vans are NOT used.
100% of the vans are NOT used outside of the commuting hours.
That’s a lot of capital sitting around doing nothing! Wasteful. Kind of like BFD and BPD excess vehicles. “We have extra money, let’s buy vehicles…”

8 employees to operate 83 routes is for sure inefficient. (two 3rd grade teachers could manage that many routes).

50%(+) of the Commuteride money comes from Federal Highway grants and tax dollars.

Wasting money on changing the colors and for ad campaign (we ALL know about the vans already).

Now the Commuteride Manager wants riders to protect their subsidized seats (and her job).

Bureaucracy!

There used to be a thing called carpooling- coworkers would get together and make it happen, their dime, their savings, their time.

Solution- drop Commuteride like a hot potato.
This Enterprise operation will likley be short-lived, but worth a shot. Maybe those 800 passengers will use the terrible bus system instead and then ask VRT for improvements (which VRT will ignore). But, hopefully VRT can read the writing on the wall and get SMALLER buses for improved routes and access.