Uh oh... somebody bashed transit...
Everyone has a breaking point when it comes to gas prices. I doubt people here will "love their cars" when gas hits $6 a gallon. So they'll get angry at their public leaders for not giving them adequate public transportation alternatives, and they'll come up with a poorly-planned "emergency" transit plan that will undoubtedly fail. Now THAT would be a waste of tax dollars. It's good that the city is putting in the infrastructure now so that it will be there when people want it.
That is an ignorant misconception. Yes, poor people do ride the bus more frequently than middle- or high-income people, but that's because, in most inner-city neighborhoods, buses are convenient and frequent. You can't say that about suburban neighborhoods, most upper-income people live. Besides, in cities where the buses actually go places, I know people who ride them, and they certainly aren't poor. I would love to ride the bus to UAH if it was convenient and more frequent, and I wouldn't consider myself poor. Only problem is, I live in the county, and the city runs the system. So until we create a "metro" transit system (or I move into the city, which is more likely), I'll be driving.
So is being stuck in traffic.
Get an iPod. There's nothing more private than that. And that's another thing- you let someone else do the driving when you take the bus! So you could talk on your cell phone, eat, read a book- do everything you would do while driving, only safer.
The park-and-ride's geared primarily for people who, say, live in Madison and work downtown, or people who live in Huntsville and work in Research Park West. It will probably be a terminal for future routes to the Arsenal, Madison, the Airport, and University Drive/Providence, just to name a few possibilities. Like I said earlier, they're putting in the infrastructure for when we need it. And that, in my opinion, is a good use of my tax dollars.
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