Sunday, January 24, 2010

Some Other Thoughts On Transit

I was reading a fellow blogger's post, The Serial Rider Chronicles, on limiting parking spaces and availability in downtown Lexington as a way to encourage increased ridership for Lextran.

In this post, the author expresses amazement that just about every new development in town acknowledges the need for some "deal" to be struck with Lextran for transit needs. Our government of late has tried to include every mode of transportation in the effort of satisfying a "complete streets" component in development plans. These 'deals" are to satisfy a mas transit mode.

From my vantage point, it seems that in each of these "deals" it is Lextran that is always the party which need to amend their way of operating. A re-arrangement of route or stop point is usually asked for either to serve the development better or to move further from the requested auto-centric entrance of the client. I rarely see a plan which takes a transit oriented approach to development in Lexington(and people wonder why the buses appear empty for a majority of their routes).

In my opinion, any future deals should strive to become more equal and fair so as to benefit each party in parity. Perhaps in the reality of a "great reset" as predicted by Richard Florida and others, this will come about.

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