Orange County is preparing to increase the LYNX bus system’s budget by 19% during it’s department budget hearings on Tuesday. This is the same flawed bus system that has seen problems with leadership (story HERE), money (story HERE), and service (story HERE) in recent years.
So what are we going to do? Throw more money at it of course.
LYNX has been bad since I’ve been riding it back in the mid 90s. The routes don’t make any sense, the buses aren’t clean, and many of the stops are uncovered during afternoon rain leaving it’s customers soaking wet.
Rather than consider pragmatic solutions that don’t break the bank first, we’re taking the easy way out.
They say the goals are to reduce traffic and increase pedestrian and bike rider safety. We’ve heard that before as well.
The truth is, that as of July 2019, Central Floridians are not prepared to separate from their personal vehicles. The ones that have are leaning towards rideshare and bikeshare.
They’re not using LYNX and they’re not using SunRail either while we’re at it.
And as if more money on a bad system isn’t enough, they want to raise your taxes to throw even more money at a system that you’re not going to use (story HERE).
LYNX doesn’t just serve Orange. Are our tax dollars going to go towards services in Seminole and Osceola counties too? That’s not right.
The point here is that Orange County has to properly demonstrate what they’re going to do to make LYNX better, and then explain how they’re going to get people to ride it. We shouldn’t be buying more buses that aren’t going to be used or managed properly.
Unfortunately, that’s what we’re doing. Taking the easy way out. We need to do better.
