Northwest Indiana Discussion

mirage must have been looking through the remnants of the other board when he found this. and as he points out, this is what i said should occur back in february. so the issue being kicked around now, isnt new.

but please note. taken in context, this was written before the legislative caps were in place and before the potential alleviating 1 million dollars from the city budget was as imperitive as it is now.


The Oracle of the Region wrote:
wow. first we have preacher complaining the the buses we have are too expensive. than now here you are complaining you want more service?

short version of my previous arguement to preacher

the fact is...hammonds bus system is very efficient...now i have often seen empty buses running around...and that has troubled me...but the numbers of reported ridership are way up there (cant remember the actual numbers but its in the 10' of thousands a week).

as it is...most of the city's bus service is paid for by non local funds. be it the state or federal government. im not a huge fan of the buses...but all in all...they arent too much of a strain on the hammond budget.

now as for your arguement free.

first...i agree that hammond should invite more cab companies to the city...by offering more medallions. im all for free the free market to determine if cab companies can succeed here...and dont like limits to the numbers of cabs available that most city's put on them. besides that...it could add some revenue for the city (medallion fees) and even provide a few more jobs too.

but you cant force these companies to run 24/7 either. first...i dont know if its profitable for an all night cab service around here. second...there is a very real safety issue...when you talks about cab drivers going out on residential pickups at say 3 am on a tuesday morning. so i disagree about doing anything to legislate that.

as for increasing bus service city wide. no. i dont agree with that idea whatsoever. im not convinced that there is that much demand for a hessville resident to ride a bus to robertsdale...or what have you. most suburban (and hammond is a suburb) residents own cars. and most prefer to use their own cars whenever possible. the lone exceptions to that seem to be in one of two groups of people.

the first are too poor to own there own cars. i know it sounds harsh but i wouldnt want a cta like bus service to cater to them...any more than i would want a billboard put up on the borman welcoming all of the chicago housing project emigrees to the city of hammond.

the second group are people who simply find it a bother to drive to certain locations.....mostly the city of chicago because of parking difficulties. they would like direct service to the loop...but have no desire or need to take a bus to the local cabela's

however, if there ever is a true area wide bus service...that could connect...not just hammond...but the entire county (or include porter too if you must rda)...that could better connect to say places like the county courthouse...purdue cal and chicago via the south shore stations...and make reasonable stops in between at various retail estabishments...well than that could be a worthwhile venture.

but the city cant do that on their own. and the various busing entities in the region have a long history of not working together very well.

as for the vans you have reported seeing? i believe those are all tied in to the township's dial a ride program...which does provide a decent service for the elderly and infirmed in hammond. but has little to do with city government.

Know what's funny? My post with that quote has now vanished from the topic. Can't think of a single reason why a pro-McDermott poster would want to see it removed but I can think of a few anti-McDermott posters besides Freetime who might would.

I think Yuri is simply trying to sabotage his own board so that he can't bebothered with it anymore

I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt but this mess has been going on way too long. There is little doubt something is going on behind the scenes to perpetuate the situation rather than make corrections.

The saddest part is that many comments were actually getting picked up by the well known search engines. I know that's not a big deal to some, but it's kinda exciting to see one of your own posts being cited occasionally sometimes where you least expected to see it.