$3.XX a Gallon

I fell asleep on the bus ride home on Thursday. No small feat considering the bus was standing room only, but I had secured a seat by walking up to an earlier stop. The days of offering a seat to a woman or child might be over. I've done this quite a few times, in some cases I'd get up before they get on so as to not have to even ask them to take the seat. But then, the last time I did that, a guy took my newly vacant seat while I and a few other women stood. That was uncool.

But the days of offering a seat might be over because so damn many people are riding the bus these days! There are a lot of folks standing up, which is good, in some ways. That the busses were so crowed early last year E-Tran decided to increase the number of Big Horn Express busses going to and from downtown Sacramento. So while I might stand from time to time, the level of service has improved. I consider it high quality: every 15 minutes from 6:00 to 7:30 AM, and every 15 minutes from 3:30 to 5:30 every evening. With more ridership, these times won't get worse, and they just might even improve. The stop is a quarter mile from my house, so I don't ever have to get in the car.

But there's a problem. Fares only account for about 1/3 of E-Trans expenses. The rest comes from local taxes and other government funding, but these latter two sources have declined with the economy and the deficits these entities face. So I don't expect any increased level of service in public transportation even though we are in a ridership growth spurt. And when gas goes back down to $3.XX a gallon, these new folks will resume driving, so ridership will falter. There is no way we can improve public transportation under the 'lower gas prices at any cost' schemes offered by our government.