I encourage people to attend this meeting on transportation;
The MPO is holding this meeting on Tues. January 14th from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. at the Downtown Library.
I also received this email about some of the plans for public transit in Sioux Falls, and concerns (I edited the content to be more specific);
The Planning Department suggested to have bus rapid transit from downtown to the Events Center and than to the Pentagon FARE-free, for conventioneers, sports fans, tourists, but NOT our most fragile residents.
As I have mentioned before, we must first fix paratransit and make it easier to use, faster, city-wide, and yes, more affordable before we start tackling who can get to the dead zone called the Events Center campus or a Skyforce game. It seems this town has plenty of money for those who already have the means to pay for their own transportation but not for the less fortunate. Do I think public transit for everyone should be totally FREE? No. But I do think we can provide better service and make it extremely affordable to almost FREE. We need to concentrate on the economic impact of public transit and getting people to work. If we can provide an efficient, hassle free and affordable way to get people to work the economic impact of it would pay for itself. While we are dinking around with TIFs for parking ramps and bailouts of historical movie theaters we are neglecting the people who make this city spin, OUR WORKERS of every economic stripe and status.
SHAKE, MY, HEAD.
If you can afford $100 tickets to a hayseed bro country show you can afford a Lyft to downtown afterwards. And if Sanford wants to increase Skyforce attendance maybe they can take a few bucks out of the Denny statue fund and set up their own shuttle service.
“What about using pedal pubs from the EC, or the Pentagon, to our fine downtown?”….”I would especially enjoy the precarious ride down the 6th Street cobblestones”….. 😉