Thursday, January 10, 2019

One person riding $2 million Ride On bus in Rockville

Montgomery County launched Ride On Extra Route 101 with great fanfare two years ago, promising the express bus would "move more people" on "one of the most heavily used corridors in Montgomery County." The route costs taxpayers $2 million a year to operate between Lakeforest Mall and Bethesda Medical Center along Route 355. Last night around 6:50 PM during the evening rush hour, northbound and southbound Ride On Extra buses passed each other on Rockville Pike near Edmonston Drive. Despite being at the midpoint of the trip during a peak rush hour time, each bus was carrying only one person.

Route 355 is just as crowded as it was before the service launched, and taxpayers are being soaked for another wasteful transit program. Next up: the $10 billion Bus Rapid Transit boondoggle. Meanwhile the County Council is facing another budget shortfall, and hinting at further tax increases in the years ahead. Heckuva job, Brownie!

Photo via Montgomery County

25 comments:

  1. What were you doing at Rockville Pike at Edmonston Drive last night?

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    1. Are you with the MoCo cartel Stasi? Bizarre question by any measure, Comrade.

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    2. "Are you with the MoCo cartel Stasi?"

      That's a pretty bizarre question right there. Where else but SNN?

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    3. 10:25: Considering the MoCo cartel is literally running the County as a Communist dictatorship - complete with Soviet-style "elections" and Pravda-clone Washington Post house organ - it's a very appropriate question for me to ask, Comrade.

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    4. You sound like an escaped mental patient.

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  2. Setting aside the fact that you have a right-wing bias against using any sort of public funding for mass transportation, I'm curious about what would be the level of ridership that would, in your mind, 'justify' having this special bus route. Five riders at 6:00 PM? Six riders at 7:00 PM? Or would anything less than half-full seats be a 'failure' in your estimation?

    One of the main reasons that this special route was created was to make it appealing to the 'elite' like yourself, white middle-aged men in professional jobs who want to avail themselves of the convenience of mass transit but wouldn't be caught dead sitting on a regular Ride-On next to those grubby poor people, with stops at every two-bit strip mall. I've ridden those sleek 101 buses a couple of times when I was lucky enough to be standing at one of the few designated 'express' stops where they allow passengers to board, and they do look nice and Executive, but otherwise it's just another bus that goes from point A to point B.

    I'm surprised you didn't post a dozen photographs of the empty bus.

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  3. One bus on one day isn't a significantly statistical sample. FAIL. Go try again and do this over a period of one or two months. Ride the bus and different hours getting on and off at various stops. Then come back and report your findings. This post is just another ranting.

    Kudos though for only posting one photo.

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    1. 10:40: Should restaurants be inspected over two months if vermin infested, rather than shut down after the first inspection? $2 million a year for one person to ride the bus is definitely rant-worthy. You have to ask why I'm the only person in MoCo who is concerned about it.

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    2. It's odd that you jump from passengers on buses to vermin in restaurants. Do you see the two as somehow equivalent?

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  4. How do you know the Pike is just as crowded? Did you count the cars the same time each night over period of time?

    Really Robert all that ELITE high school education didn't help you much.

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    1. 10:42: Unlike you, I actually drive the Pike on a regular basis, and traffic congestion has not improved. Not surprising given that there is only one person on the bus!

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  5. Very unscientific of you to conduct a one vehicle spot survey at a time when 85% of the government workforce is furloughed. That's a real Trumptard cheap shot for yah. What? Nothing to rant about during the shutdown so you throw darts at anything you think will attract attention. You are such a shill.

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    1. 10:53: Still using the R-word in 2019? How enlightened!

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  6. "Reactions: funny (0) interesting (0) cool (0) useful (0) fucking retarded (44)"

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    1. Robert why do you skew your reaction choices to all positive?

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  7. 6:50pm is not "Peak Rush Hour". in this area Especially when the Fed is shut down.

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    1. 1:34: It not only is peak rush hour, but the hornblowing MoCo press releases that launched the service declared it as one of the peak rush hour periods for the service!

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    2. "The hornblowing MoCo press releases that launched the service declared 6:50 PM as one of the peak rush hour periods for the service!"

      Do you have a link to this press release?

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  8. "each bus was carrying only one person."

    In the brief moment that you happened to see both buses passing the intersection of Rockville Pike and Edmonston Drive, you were able to see into the dark windows of both buses and verify that there was one and only one passenger in each of them?

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    1. 2:40: If you were actually driving the Pike like me, you would know that you can clearly see into the bus windows at night.

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  9. Try being a good fucking news reporter and post some actual fucking ridership statistics. Not your anecdotal "evidence" and opinion.

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    1. 9:03: A spot check found one person riding the bus in each direction. Facts. Try to be less vulgar in the future, you sound like a maniac.

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  10. I don't think you are getting it. A one time spot check means nothing. Did you even take a statics class in your "ELITE" high school.

    Go out and conduct a survey over a long period. Mornings, evenings and mid day. Do riders most go from end to end or do they ride only part of the route? Do they go from metro station to metro station or do people mostly get on and off mid way?

    Rushing here to post and a "spot check" us useless. All you are doing to finding an excuse to trash the County.

    You want people here to stop making fun of you? Then stop posting alarmist and partisan "news".

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    1. 9:13: A spot check of a filthy restaurant means everything. We caught them red-handed with only one person on each bus both directions. The whole point of the route is express service, meaning that by definition no one is riding short distances. Therefore, if the service was indeed a success, the buses would be filled at a midpoint like Edmonston Drive.

      You want people to stop making fun of you? Then stop defending spending $2 million a year on a bus carrying one person.

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  11. Bob, it would literally be cheaper to just Uber all the bus passengers around than fund the bus services that run out anywhere past about the Beltway.
    But ever pointing this out invites hate, cursing, name-calling, and the usual left-wing unhinged reaction.

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