Subsidized Soccer & Swimming?
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 By James Nesbitt
The Enquirer reports on a new idea in the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming:
Someday kids here may be able to ride to soccer practice or the city swimming pool without having mom or dad transporting them in the family car.
Following the suggestion of resident Suzanna Smith, Wyoming officials are exploring the possibility of trolleying residents throughout this city, made up of 8,261 residents.
“We don’t have any idea of whether the community will support it,” City Manager Robert Harrison said recently.
But “given the high gas prices,” a trolley system represents “an opportunity to access different parts of the city with public transportation,” Harrison said.
Access what different parts of the city? Wyoming has a total area of less than 3 square miles. A trolley system to service children and nonexistent tourists of a 8300-member community seems a little extravagant. The most convenient mode of transportation is often by foot in a city this small. Most residents of Wyoming don’t work within the city and few employees of Wyoming businesses live within the city, making a local transit system useful for very few community members. SORTA, Cincinnati’s regional transportation system, already operates a bus route down the main Wyoming thoroughfare, offering public transportation in and out of the community.
The article cites several “successful” examples in other cities with impressive ridership statistics, but doesn’t mention that these cities are much larger than Wyoming. It also mentions that these services are free. To the riders, that is. But as Milton Friedman would say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The cost of these “free” systems is simply shifted to taxpayers. Here’s a more practical and responsible approach for parents wishing to transport their children: rent a van, don’t rent-seek from your neighbors.
Tags: public transit
