http://fallschurchtimes.com/2393/lots-of-ideas-on-george-bus-%e2%80%93-will-any-of-them-work/ Falls Church City's Online Community Newspaper Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:01:35 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://fallschurchtimes.com/2393/lots-of-ideas-on-george-bus-%e2%80%93-will-any-of-them-work/comment-page-1/#comment-432 Dan Maller Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:03:18 +0000 http://fallschurchtimes.com/?p=2393#comment-432 The ownership of the buses is a very important question. WMATA is the legal owner, but in essence they are acting as trustee for the City; my position is that WMATA and NVTC should support redeployment of the value of the buses towards the transportation needs of the City, and Congressman Moran would be our champion as he always has for any reasonable request we may make. Unfortunately, we are not ready at this moment to make any considered request, so the main purpose of my suggestion that we consider keeping the system operating at a reduced level is to buy time. I have some much more unconventional ideas, but ART operates conventional 20 passenger buses powered by CNG, and I think it is Chattanooga that has 20 passenger electric buses. While a big part of the operating cost is no doubt the cost of a driver, these vehicles would no doubt be less costly to operate, and maybe we could run permanently on the $175k subsidy or less, and begin to build a system we could all be proud of, fiscally and environmentally. The ownership of the buses is a very important question. WMATA is the legal owner, but in essence they are acting as trustee for the City; my position is that WMATA and NVTC should support redeployment of the value of the buses towards the transportation needs of the City, and Congressman Moran would be our champion as he always has for any reasonable request we may make. Unfortunately, we are not ready at this moment to make any considered request, so the main purpose of my suggestion that we consider keeping the system operating at a reduced level is to buy time. I have some much more unconventional ideas, but ART operates conventional 20 passenger buses powered by CNG, and I think it is Chattanooga that has 20 passenger electric buses. While a big part of the operating cost is no doubt the cost of a driver, these vehicles would no doubt be less costly to operate, and maybe we could run permanently on the $175k subsidy or less, and begin to build a system we could all be proud of, fiscally and environmentally.

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