DUH BUS?

[Tritransit Area]

Here's another "What if" question about the bus.  What if THE BUS provided the same standard of service as Ride-On (half hourly headways, routes that cover just about every inch of the county, multiple fuel sources, etc).  Do you think the PG Ridership would surpass what Ride-On was able to attain?

[WMAveteran]

Well, unfortunately transit does not seem to respond to the same rules as baseball diamonds, namely, "If you build it they will come."  Transit has to be built to take people where they want to go when they want to get there and many routes (that appeared to be good ideas at first) were discontinued because "nobody came."  With respect to Ride On it does not provide coverage over all of Montgomery County 7 days a week.  Many Ride On routes only operate 5 days a week or during rush hours especially in the western part of the county.  Perhaps Prince George's County needs to conduct transit and traffic surveys to determine where new routes would be best utilized before creating them.  On second thought, maybe they have already done that and maybe that's why they have fewer routes (or maybe it's just lack of funds).  Requests from the public for more service can also be effective but maybe the public in Prince George's County is discouraged by DUH BUS' current level of service and doesn't want more of the same (a "Catch 22" type vicious circle). A very complicated issue, I think, but thanks for the question.

[LandoverDivision]

Here's another "What if" question about the bus.  What if THE BUS provided the same standard of service as Ride-On (half hourly headways, routes that cover just about every inch of the county, multiple fuel sources, etc).  Do you think the PG Ridership would surpass what Ride-On was able to attain?

People in PG don't ride buses often because of the lack of dependability of the buses especially on weekends. If The Bus had frequent service like Ride On, and people got a chance to study it and ride them etc., then there would be a lot more ridership than usual.