Last week, the Memorial Examiner ran a story about how the Spring Branch Family Development Center was given the cold shoulder by Metro, after being promised four years ago that the taxpayer-funded transit agency would expand bus service in the Spring Branch area:
Barnes has been lobbyingMetro to expand bus service in Spring Branch since the Family Development Center opened in 2001 and came close to success when Metro announced four years ago that it would inaugurate a north-south line on Bingle-Voss-Hilcroft that would run from south of Richmond to near U. S. 290 in Spring Branch.
The route was supposed to open in August 2003 but Metro’s leadership changed, and the new line was scuttled. The executive who supported it was reassigned.
As the story notes, the center was on the receiving end of a large charitable donation that enabled it to provide its own transit service for those in need, in spite of Metro’s unwillingness to follow through on a promise:
For just $10 a month, Spring Branch residents who have no means of transportation can get portal-to-portal service to area medical clinics, markets and social service offices on a 14-passenger bus purchased by the Spring Branch Family Development Center with funds donated by an anonymous benefactor.
Recall that Metro doesn’t like bus routes to have a more than $6 per-rider subsidy, but doesn’t mind the almost $25 per-rider subsidy light rail requires.
You might also find it interesting that Metro’s sales tax allocation for August was more than $46 million.
