Today's News Journal carries a hard-hitting editorial about DelDOT and DART, written by Harry F. Themal. You can read it on
the News Journal's website, if you are a subscriber or not over-limit on perusing their news.
In the editorial, Themal dives into the murky depths of DelDART's recent problems, focusing on the Delaware Transit Corp (DTC), which operates as DART. He enumerates three recent "disturbing developments," including (1) an apparent large illegal payment to a departing employee, followed by almost immediate and questionable rehire of said employee; (2) proposed cutting of bus trips to the Baylor's Women's Correction Center; and of course (3) the proposed removal of bus stops at Rodney Square.
Proposed Reduction in Trips to Baylor's
Harry points out that for most of the women inmates at Baylor's, buses are the only form of transportation available to either them or their families. He wrote:
"Some schedules must be maintaned in the public interest, and the buses that serve the women's prison are certainly in that category. Cutting the trips from 12 to eight a day, leaving five hours without service in the middle of the day, would save a mere $7,741 a year, DART officials say. That's wrong-headed thinking because even if a bus has no passengers one day, the schedule must be available for families wanting to visit inmates,for women on work-release to travel to work and classes, and for freed prisoners to head home."
Proposed Dismantling of Rodney Square Bus Transit Hub
Themal describes as "dangerous" DART's proposed June service change plan that would reroute buses away from Rodney Square and "onto narrow downtown Wilmington streets. He wrote:
"The roundly criticized proposal to revise downtown bus routes needs to be scrapped so a more comprehensive plan can be devised. Just moving buses off Rodney Square does not address the question of whether and where so many routes should merge downtown.
A transit center in an accessible and safer location, perhaps near the train station, could help alleviate some of the congestion."
Themal, and probably all the rest of us, hope that recent changes in DTC management will lead to more rational decisions about these and other matters, including addition of the transparency promised by new agency head Lauren Skiver. I'm personally surprised that Governor Markell isn't taking a stronger interest in this stuff, especially in an election year. The DelDOT and DTC problems certainly predate our current governor, but news coverage I've seen hasn't seemed to show a particularly aggressive stance on changing this stuff.
As to point (1) above, that probable overpayment to DTC manager James Woodruff would have paid for several years of continuation of trips to Baylor's. Wave bye-bye to your tax dollars, folks.
Delaware politicians, from the City of Wilmington all the way to Dover, need to stop ignoring the problems DTC is creating or trying to create. They need to
insist that DTC serve the people of Wilmington, New Castle County, and all of Delaware. Not their political buddies, big businesses (including big law firms), and contributors, but the people they are
supposed to serve: the tired commuters riding our buses and trains to their jobs; the little kids wanting to visit their mom at Baylor; the little old ladies trying to make their way to ShopRite to buy groceries or to Target to buy a new bedspread for their little apartment; the discouraged out-of-work dad who is taking the bus all over the county to apply for jobs because he can't afford to fix his car; the disabled vet who wants the independence of riding the bus to his therapy appointments; not to mention all the rest of us who rely on public transportation here in the Wilmington area.
