BRATTLEBORO — Hello, my fellow bus riders in Brattleboro! Does anyone out there like the new bus schedule? If so, I have not heard your voice yet.
Despite the Connecticut River Transit operations manager's claims to the contrary, everybody I talked to considers the new schedule a reduction in services. Personally, I believe it to be a convoluted disaster.
Not only is there no longer any Sunday bus service, but also, on weekdays, the last bus leaves downtown for West Brattleboro at 4:45 p.m., instead of 6:15 p.m., as it did previously. What about people who work until 5 or 6 p.m. or people who want to stay in the library in the late afternoon?
No longer do we have bus service to Hannaford in the morning on weekdays. In order to come back from Price Chopper to downtown Brattleboro, you now have to go to Guilford first. And as far as getting a decent connection from the Price Chopper to West Brattleboro? Forget about this altogether. You might as well go grocery shopping on the moon.
It is not impossible to design a workable bus schedule. Bennington has an excellent schedule with four local routes, and the fare is only 50 cents. If the bus company serving Brattleboro cannot come up with an improved schedule, it should leave the old one in place.
When I attended a public Selectboard meeting where the supposed benefits to the riders from outsourcing the town bus line were touted by the town manager and all but one board member voted to abdicate the town's responsibility to run the BeeLine - over the objections articulated by several people in the audience - I had the distinct impression that we were being thrown under the bus.
This nonchalant attitude is in line with the town management's and Selectboard's lack of concern for pedestrian safety, for clearing the sidewalks from ice and snow, and the skatepark issue, to name a few. Does anybody care?
To be fair, it must be said that there is one lonely voice on the Selectboard who does care about the less well-to-do and senior citizens of Brattleboro and who always has sound judgment. We all know that this voice belongs to Dora Bouboulis.
And while it might be impossible to find another Dora, we must ask ourselves why the other Selectboard members are so oblivious of the needs of the many citizens whose interests they are supposed to represent.
Does this look like an eerie reflection of what is happening on a larger stage?