I haven't been on a Lanta bus since my days at William Allen. However, I've been to Lanta headquarters and other locations for meetings about their service. I first got on their case when they ended bus service to the former merchants of Hamilton Street, steering their passenger victims to their detention center across from the former Morning Call building.
It seems that whenever there is a frisky snow predicted, they're awful quick to suspend service. While I can appreciate that they would like to avoid stuck buses, they seem less concerned about stranded passengers. Do not those who take a bus to work depend on it for their return trip home?
Lanta accounts to nobody. Although there are occasional Dept. of Transportation meetings which allow public comment, it doesn't carry any weight with the decision makers.
Fake LANTA rider checking in: Its pretty obvious that you haven't been on a LANTA bus since your high school days. If you did ride today, you would love the Allentown Transportation Center. To those of us who do ride LANTA, its nice to have a centralized, safe, comfortable and sheltered station to transfer. The digital message board signs indicating real time bus arrivals and departures is very useful. The operators now have a comfortable place to use a restroom as well. Sure beats the "good old days" of running a block or two from the 700 block up to the PPL in the rain in hopes of catching your transfer with no real time information or security.
ReplyDeleteYour reply had nothing to do with the post. Why bother other than just to troll? He did not claim to be a current LANTA user. I am wondering, did you spend the night at the centralized, safe, comfortable and sheltered station over night given service was suspended due to the storm?
DeleteI was responding to the moderator labeling the ATC as a "detention center". No I do not rely on LANTA to commute to work. Besides think for the safety of riders and operators, it is reasonable to suspend transit service once a year during a snow emergency that the public has been aware of for 3 to 4 days in advance.
Deleteanon@11:44: This post wasn't written because of this particular service suspension, but rather their quickness to do so with pending storms.
DeleteYes, it is ironic that LANTA’s customers, who we are told by LANTA (at funding time) critically need the Authority’s services, suddenly don’t need it as much when the snow flies.
ReplyDeleteOne would think we’d be reading numerous stories today about all the riders who were stranded by the Authority’s decision.
It almost makes you wonder if LANTA inflates its rider numbers.
On that last point, I also find it curious that almost all buses are now wrapped in advertising that makes it difficult to see inside. I used to remark how empty most of the buses were as they drove past me.
It’s almost like the advertising is meant to hide the truth. Surely that can’t be the reason, right?
Off topic, but I just read that Chicago is canceling its contract for the “Shot Spotter” technology.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the article, “The gunfire detection system has been criticized for allegedly being too costly and ineffective.” The article also mentioned that “… a 2021 report showed only 9% of gunshot alerts were ever linked to gun-related crimes”
Meanwhile back in Allentown, where our elected officials seem to be a decade behind in implementing the bad ideas of our major cities, we will forge ahead with the planned installation.
One only hopes they already have a plan to annually evaluate the program, and will report those results promptly to the public. But we all know that won’t happen, and I could barely type that sentence because I was laughing so hard.
You're illustration reminds me of the Honeymooners episode where Ralph declares (and I'm paraphrasing) the mail gets delivered through the snow and sleet and rain because the mailman rides with me! Sounds like there's little chance that a LANTA driver could make that claim. 😄
ReplyDelete