New Intercity Bus Service

[tufsu1]

I would like to know the Tea Party's position on sprawl and its impact on our city financially.  Complaining about spending money fix up a park is one thing.  However, that expense is peanuts compared to our real bull in the china room.  Any idea on their position towards reigning in unsustainable low density growth and the saving of taxpayer money being spent to support that sinking ship that come along with it?  Have they made any comments on the Collins Road interchange, Atlantic/Kernan Overpass, New Kings Road Overpass or Outer Beltway?  How about encouraging more density to help reduce the coverage area by police and fire?

easy....taking away or restricting people's choice to buy/develop in the suburbs would be seen as a bad thing..and making investments in urban areas would be a problem...now they might stand behind no investment at all, but the generl public wouldn't support that for long....and much of the political power in the U.S. these days come from suburbs of metro areas.

[buckethead]

I would like to know the Tea Party's position on sprawl and its impact on our city financially.  Complaining about spending money fix up a park is one thing.  However, that expense is peanuts compared to our real bull in the china room.  Any idea on their position towards reigning in unsustainable low density growth and the saving of taxpayer money being spent to support that sinking ship that come along with it?  Have they made any comments on the Collins Road interchange, Atlantic/Kernan Overpass, New Kings Road Overpass or Outer Beltway?  How about encouraging more density to help reduce the coverage area by police and fire?

I share quite a few sentiments with the Tea Party. I also find what I read here to be very logical, and the benefits of urban density and transit are apparent once a person takes the time to consider the economic realities so often presented.

Fiscal conservatism need not be exclusively opposed to transit investment. In fact, the opposite when considering the overall cost of road building. Many conservatives have not considered the cost of road building vs transit such as busses or rail. Those costs are not limited to dollars, but even based on a dollar per dollar perspective, you might find more allies than you seem to think.

[Dog Walker]

We had business in Korea in the early '90's and rode the motor coaches from city to city.  Movie screen in the front (Saw "Red Heat" dubbed in Korean and understood it all!).  Cocktail bar in back.  Leather seats that reclined almost fully.  Great way to travel!

Off the subject, have never understood why Korea isn't more of a tourist destination.  Beautiful country, lots of history, really friendly, outgoing people.

[cityimrov]

If we had buses like that, the complaint over the over - luxurious spending would be on the front page news.  The city would be in national news about the overspending of buses.  

Ock has a point that realistically - it wouldn't cost too that much more to make the buses nicer.  The problem is that people don't care about reality.  To a certain group of people, IF IT LOOKS EXPENSIVE - IT IS EXPENSIVE.  The general public would then get caught up into that since that argument is easier to understand then looking at the bus budget.  Most people hate staring at budget numbers so you need to educate them by mass media campaign and that's a massive undertaking for a transit agency.  Don't worry, people will then massively complain about why the agency is wasting money on ad's (ask JEA).   

Even if JTA is funded mostly by state or federal dollars, most people don't care.  They think the agency is funded by their city tax dollars and the city will get blame over anything the agency does.

[Ocklawaha]

http://www.youtube.com/v/1GBN3_Nr5pY?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x402061&color2=0x9461ca
NOT YOUR MOMMA'S BUS! This BTW is the EXACT layout I have in mind (just in case JTA is reading this) Just add coffee, cold drinks, snack items and we're off to see the Wizard.

If we had buses like that, the complaint over the over - luxurious spending would be on the front page news.  The city would be in national news about the overspending of buses.  

Ock has a point that realistically - it wouldn't cost too that much more to make the buses nicer.  The problem is that people don't care about reality.  To a certain group of people, IF IT LOOKS EXPENSIVE - IT IS EXPENSIVE.  The general public would then get caught up into that since that argument is easier to understand then looking at the bus budget.  Most people hate staring at budget numbers so you need to educate them by mass media campaign and that's a massive undertaking for a transit agency.  Don't worry, people will then massively complain about why the agency is wasting money on ad's (ask JEA).   

Even if JTA is funded mostly by state or federal dollars, most people don't care.  They think the agency is funded by their city tax dollars and the city will get blame over anything the agency does.

As a transportation planner, if I became director of mass transit tomorrow for JTA, this would be in the works by next weekend. When the heavy hitters of the area business, industry and sports start explaining how nice it is to abandon the Lexus and "Ride the Eagle" the opinions of the city would become a choir of praise. I'd take that risk and stake my reputation on it with a challenge to ride it once and talk about it twice. Branded with a name like "The Eagle" "The American Enterprise" "Freedom Coach" etc.. Jaxson's would place their hands over their hearts when the thing drove by.

OCKLAWAHA