Hornbeck said:

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So, instead of giving every rider a car….

How about free Uber / Lyft fares?

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Give eligible persons 8 to 10 $25 to $30 uber/taxi tickets a month and shut down brazos transit.

GSS said:

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I was directly told by the now new BTD CEO, her desire would be to eliminate fares, free ridership.
Surely a hard sell, but it enlightened me to her leadership direction.

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What's another million? It's only other people's money so who cares? Sarcasm of course

metroid_84 said:

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GSS said:

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A&M and Blinn provide zero $$, and the demand for the Bryan, College Station, and Brazos county to throw in a $1,000,000.00 was due to the area population growth, reducing the Fed and State tax $$.
And regarding not paying fares? That's easy, when it's just pulling from the big pot of tax $$, NOW Federal, State, and local.
Fare revenue for 2023 was 0.036% of the Operating expenses, so what's a few extra non-fare riders?

BTD 2023 budget

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Are you sure their contribution isn't part of the 2.3 million from state sources?

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From the BTD site: " We are a Political Subdivision of the State of Texas and receive funding through the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT)."

(And now Bryan, College Station, and Brazos county...)

Some BTD trivia they would prefer you forget ever happened: Buses that "looked" like a trolley, which soon after implementation, wound up in the BTD graveyard, behind their facility.


BTD went "green", long before EV, by buying a fleet of buses to run on ---LNG, liquified natural gas! Only one (big) problem, there was no B-CS site to fuel them, so a trip to Madisonville (closest site), was required daily! They were soon retired, at an unknown astronomical loss of taxpayer $$$).

When College Station wanted to dump its money losing Northgate parking garage, in 2002-2003, BTD made an offer at 3x the annual revenue stream. Fortunately it didn't happen.

Was the decision to buy buses that looked like Trolley Cars because of the distant memory of the pre-WW2 trolley system that ran down Texas from A&M to downtown Bryan?

Anyway, I found this on the A&M Transportation Division website's FAQ:

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Why are IDs now required to board off-campus routes and why are Brazos Transit District customers now riding AggieSpirit buses?

Brazos Transit District (The District) and Texas A&M University Transportation Services have a history of cooperation and partnership dating back to 2006. Recently the two entities jointly applied for and were awarded federal grant money. The District used this money to purchase 24 diesel and 3 electric buses for use by Transportation Services. Due to this agreement and to qualify again for federal grant money for future bus purchases, both The District and Transportation Services must honor IDs/passes from each other on both systems.
Students, faculty, and staff possessing a Texas A&M University or Blinn College ID, and members of the general public possessing a Brazos Transit District ID, must be prepared to show their ID to the driver when boarding at off-campus stops.
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So the University IDs working on the buses (and BTD IDs working on A&M buses) was a requirement of federal grants for both BTD and TAMU, presumably the ridership was only big enough to justify the grant if the riderships for BTD and TAMU were merged. And here I thought A&M was directly contributing to BTD's budget... Well, for what its worth, I know A&M students who used the BTD buses to go to the clinics on Rock Prairie for off-campus medical appointments, and to downtown Bryan (mainly for jury duty), so that was a heck of a deal for A&M students.

They just need a line that helps avoid longhorn cattle trauma and increases their fertility rates. It will be all approved when that happens.

PS3D said:

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metroid_84 said:

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:/

Well, I personally took the Brazos Transit buses four times this week and each time there were five or more people on it. I have an eye condition that makes it difficult for me to drive at times during the year (triggered by stress and allergies).

Personally, I have heard a lot of complaints this year from A&M students about the lack of BTD buses on the weekend (and A&M buses on long weekends). With more parking lots getting converted to non-parking on campus, I think we need more public transit, not less. Dunno if a trolley would solve that, though...

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Part of the problem is the roads anywhere close to campus haven't been touched in decades, the few we do have like William J. Bryan Parkway are being mangled, and it's politically impossible to build new roads. We can't even build a road out on the east part of the county without a massive, organized stink being raised.

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Lol, I can't imagine a BTD bus going down WJB. Surely it would run cars off the road going around those newly installed roundabouts

I've always figured the BTD was a waste of tax dollars just based on the empty buses I see on a regular basis. I didn't know how large the problem actually is. So much could be saved with just giving Uber rides.

KidDoc said:

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I've always figured the BTD was a waste of tax dollars just based on the empty buses I see on a regular basis. I didn't know how large the problem actually is. So much could be saved with just giving Uber rides.

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This is too practical and ignores the true (political) purpose of subsidizing public transportation.

doubledog said:

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KidDoc said:

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I've always figured the BTD was a waste of tax dollars just based on the empty buses I see on a regular basis. I didn't know how large the problem actually is. So much could be saved with just giving Uber rides.

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This is too practical and ignores the true (political) purpose of subsidizing public transportation.

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100%

MF… YOU are using MY credit card…