Bus ridership up 18%
“The Central Ohio Transit Authority experienced an 18 percent increase in bus ridership on its fixed routes for the month of July,” according to Columbus Local News. That’s over July 2007. Stay high, gas prices! Keep these people off the road. Disclaimer: I have never ridden on a COTA bus. (Via RetroMetro.)
You should give it a shot sometime. I started riding this summer at first as an experiment, and I’ve found it to actually be a mostly pleasant experience. COTA service gets a really bad rap, but that’s mostly from people who have never ridden it, or haven’t ridden it in a long time.
I’ve never ridden on COTA, but believe me I’ve put my time in on other city’s buses. I’m not eager to do it again. The worst thing about them is that they turn a 15-minute drive into a 45-minute hassle, generally speaking. If your point A and point B happen to be on the same bus line, it’s not too bad, but that’s not usually my situation- and many others’ I’d guess.
Yeah, the advantages can vary greatly depending upon your location. For me to drive into downtown takes about 5 minutes, and by bus it’s around 10. But factoring in the time to find a parking spot, and the extra money to pay for a parking spot, the bus ride turns into a much more attractive option.
Now that COTA has been financially stabilized, they should be able to extend suburban service. They just added a new express route from Downtown to Rickenbacker for workers in that area, and it sounds like more suburban service is in the pipeline.