Janesville & Generac’s Bus: Requesting Reductions

At Whitewater’s mid-November council meeting, Generac declared it would pay considerably less for a transit bus than Janesville Transit had projected (seventy-two percent less), and the city and university agreed to pay fifty percent less than Janesville Transit requested of them.  Note to the city administration: multi-billion-dollar Generac easily got the better of those figures.  

(See, about that prior meeting, The Bus Discussion @ Council Last Night: A Fiasco by Any Definition.)    

On Tuesday, 12.3.13, Council had to decide how to request possible changes in the schedule, as the bus now receives about forty-three thousand less than Janesville Transit expected.  (That’s expected – as no one at that agency or in our city received firm commitments for costs that were projected.)  

For 2013, the bus makes five trips on weekdays, three on Saturdays, and two on Sundays.  

So, what to do?

One thing’s seems clear – this city administration will do what it can to keep this bus going. No one is attending meetings with so called ‘stakeholders’ so that he can wind down the program – that’s simply implausible.  More likely, each meeting of this kind is one in which outside institutions and organizations are insisting and cajoling Whitewater’s administration to do more, and find a way to bolster the program (whatever its consequences).

About that data from Janesville Transit. Councilman Binnie wonders why the driver can’t record passenger trips more specifically.  (He jokes that he can’t imagine the driver is so busy that trips cannot be recorded more specifically.  Funny that – if it’s not busy, why fund?)

Here are two quick replies.  First, the data from Janesville transit are double-counted, in any event, by that own agency’s admission.  (See, Council Session of 11.5.13 Video Link: http://vimeo.com/78821732 at 2:27:16.)

If Mr. Binnie has confidence in new data collection – when there is an admission that previously published ridership data are deceivingly high – then I would ask him to contact me about some swamp land a Garden Paradise™ for sale.  

Second, is it not likely that Janesville could have, but does not, collect accurate data on individual routes’ passenger totals because to do so would reveal that this is, truly, the publicly-funded tool of one big, private corporation?   (Here, one assumes that the data would be accurate, as they have most certainly not been.)  

Whitewater’s last administration had repeated problems with dodgy data, and we cannot now do better while simultaneously relying on other cities’ lower standards.  

Whitewater’s merchants.  It’s more than clear that a majority of Council either doesn’t understand, or refuses to believe, that growth in the bus would come at the expense of local businesses.  

See, about this simple truth – one that a bus marketing study expressly concedes –  The Bus: Bad for Whitewater Now, Far Worse for Whitewater Later.

Of those who supported continued 2014 funding for the bus, every vote came from those who are affiliated with a major institution or company.  Not one favorable vote came from an independent business person who’s trying to make a go of a shop in Whitewater.

Not one.  

Now, admittedly, some of those who voted for the bus sit on boards and committees that pass regulations over small businesses, or on boards that presume to evaluate merchants’ needs, yet not one voting in favor works in that trade, or feels those pressures directly.

Neither the city manager, nor the majority at Council, nor outside bureaucrats experience those daily conditions of small business owners.    

Next: The People in the Room.