Busin’ It

Yesterday Megan and I decided to venture out onto the city bus system. Since we’ve gone down to one car we’ve been thinking about other ways to get around town. Normally there’s a bus stop right outside our apartment but our road is torn up with some major construction right now so we had to walk a few blocks to get to a stop.

We had spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the Appleton transit system. Their website isn’t very clear but we picked up a brochure at the downtown bus station. Overall it was a pretty easy experience and the bus drivers were very friendly but there are a few things that would have to change in order for us to use it on a regular basis.

1. The price would need to drop for in town travel. We live less than 5 miles from downtown (where we were going yesterday) and it cost $6 for us to get there and back. That’s only $3 per person which isn’t bad, but when both of us have to travel that gets expensive pretty quick. You can buy a 10 ride pass for $13 but I would really like to see the price drop down closer to $1 per ride when buying a pass. It’s still cheaper to drive for 2 people when going short distances.
2. Improve the routes so it takes less time to get places. The time factor isn’t a bit turn off- I’m willing for it to take longer to get around. But when the cost is considerably higher than driving myself I would like to see the time improved. Driving to downtown Appleton usually takes about 10 minutes and it took almost 40 on the bus.
3. The website needs to be greatly improved. For someone that’s never used the bus it’s pretty difficult to figure out how to get around. In order for the average person to consider public transportation it needs to be much easier to figure out how to reach your destination.

When Megan begins going to school in Oshkosh taking the bus is a much cheaper option and we’re seriously considering it. It really would save us money on gas because of the 25 mile distance one way. But for in town travel it’s not a great alternative. The only bonus for taking the bus is that it’s better for the environment because it’s one less car on the road. I suppose if we didn’t own a car it would be a good option because when compared to the overall cost of owning a car (repairs, insurance, maintenance, etc.) it would be much cheaper. But not owning a car isn’t really an option because our work isn’t on the bus route.

So I think it’s something we’ll be open to if there’s a situation where both of us need to go different places at the same time and the bus is the only option to make it work. Otherwise I don’t see us being frequent riders other than Megan riding to school. I’m curious to know how transit systems rank in other mid-sized cities.

~ by Dave on July 8, 2007.