Bus ridership sky high

As a result of the hurricane-sponsored gas drought, many more Athenians turned to the bus last month. Flagpole reports:

According to Athens Transit Director Butch McDuffie, last month’s ridership figures are up 20 percent over September of last year, and up 15 percent over August of this year. The bus system logged almost 195,000 individual rides this September. Over 30-plus years, “It’s the highest recorded ridership in any one-month period that Athens Transit has ever experienced,” McDuffie says.
...
“I would hope and anticipate that after this gas crunch goes away, that we will maintain 50 percent of that increase - because people will see that the bus does work,” McDuffie says. “Now that they’ve figured out that, ’Wow, it works,’ I think they’re going to stay.”

Let's hope so, and let's hope the Commission formally approves the ads-on-buses revenue program, that the state legislature moves quickly on allowing a transit-focused TSPLOST program, and that the federal government pulls us out of our exploits for dwindling resources and puts a fraction of that money toward rebuilding our nation's paltry public transit systems.