"Jay Honeck" wrote

"Bob Moore" wrote
Our bus drivers never touch the bikes, one
must view a 10-15 minute training video,
pay for a photo ID card, and display it to
the bus driver each time that the bike rack
is used.

Wow. I can just imagine the bureaucracy that's been set up to
administer THAT little program. Who's paying those folks' salaries?
I doubt it's the bicyclists. (Or do you pay an extra fare for your
bike?)

No extra fare...bicycles are a popular means of transportation
and exercise here in the Tampa Bay area....no snow. :-)
The number of bike shops here in Pinellas County alone must number
close to one hundred. They administer the bike rack program as a
part of their business....attracts new customers.
The citizens of Pinellas County voted an extra penny sales tax to
fund the public parks system which includes the 34 mile bike-jog
path. A lifestyle without snow can be GREAT!

What comments do you have about the mandatory wheelchair lifts that
we also have on all of our busses?

We have them, too, and I find them to be completely absurd. They
cost taxpayers enough so that we quite literally could have purchased
a special handicapped-accessible van, and staffed it with a full-time
driver -- and STILL been money ahead.

Not here in Pinellas County where we have a larger percentage of senior
citizens with health related issues than most anywhere else in the
country.

I have found that as I age I become less and less tolerant of people
demanding "rights" that simply don't exist.

I think that the Disabled American Veterans using their wheelchairs on
our public transportation systems to get to the VA hospital have earned
that "right".

Bob Moore