In today’s Chronicle is a short bit with highlights from the latest Metro Board meeting. In addition to authorizing extra money for MAP and agreeing to sell surplus trolley cars to Austin, the board discussed the smart card system, which still isn’t doing what it’s supposed to be doing, and then there’s this:
The board authorized spending $250,000 for a survey firm to research why transit ridership has gone down in recent years and what Metro can do to attract more passengers.
Shoot. For a lot less than $250,000, blogHOUSTON’s writers and readers could give Metro a list of reasons why ridership has gone down. If you’d like to give the Metro Board some hints, fire away in the forum.
UPDATE: Owen Courreges has his own (smart) thoughts on why Metro is having a problem attracting riders:
Metro has shown that it doesn’t care about its actual ridership base, and instead is fishing for yuppies.
Yep.
