Hard questions about Lextran

Tom Martin’s March 19 column on Lextran is fluff. It gives neither a comparative cost of the buses and their energy efficiency nor data on breaking down or simply stopping on routes — all of which is far more important that Martin’s softball questions.

Serious questions about Lextran’s management company should be asked and answered. Also ask about our local, rubber-stamp board of directors.

The column tells us nothing about cost/benefit analysis of the buses. What longer distance can hybrid or natural gas buses go? And clean energy? Does it take burning coal or dangerous, toxic fracking of natural gas to provide energy for the $800,000-plus electric buses? Pollution elsewhere?

What promotions are we seeing to seriously increase ridership? What about Lextran’s hellacious turnover in drivers? Why? What about working with Fayette County schools to route older kids via a combined system with more buses during school transport hours?

The city council should pay attention to this quasi-government’s spending of public money.

This story was originally published April 3, 2017 at 6:51 PM with the headline "Hard questions about Lextran."