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OPINIONS
Editorial: New TTA-Ohio bus service is worth a try
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Monday, June 30, 2008, during the Lawrence County Bus System Celebration at Ohio University Southern Campus in Ironton.
Purchase this photoIt's been 35 years since people could ride a local transit bus from Ironton to Rome Township, Huntington or Barboursville. True, a person could use Greyhound buses to get from Ironton to Huntington and from there to a few other destinations, but that meant using a limited interstate bus schedule to get around the area.
But that was years ago. This week, a new service known as TTA-Ohio began operating in the Tri-State. At first, it will run in Lawrence County and parts of West Virginia. The Ashland area will be added when repair work on the Ironton-Russell Bridge is finished later this summer.
The service is operated by the Tri-State Transit Authority. The Ohio service is subsidized by a package of state and federal grants.
Bill Dingus, executive director of the Greater Lawrence County Area Chamber of Commerce, said people in the Tri-State are connected despite the state boundary lines.
"Seventy-five percent of (Lawrence County) residents work outside the county, while 60 to 65 percent of the employees in Lawrence County are coming here from outside the county," he said.
The timing is good. Gasoline is $4 a gallon, leading many people to cut back their driving.
Last month, TTA Chief Executive Officer Vickie Shaffer said the rapid increase in gasoline prices after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 led to a significant increase in TTA ridership that defied past trends. Usually, TTA ridership reflects the ups and downs of the job market. Since 2005, it's been marked more by fuel prices, Shaffer said.
Ridership on the TTA was up 6 percent through April compared with the same months of 2007. And that was before gasoline reached the $4 mark just before the Memorial Day weekend.
In Lawrence County, "We have elderly people and Marshall students," Shaffer told The Herald-Dispatch reporter Jean Tarbett Hardiman last month. "We have people who need to go to Huntington and Ashland for services, and they can't afford to drive."
Only time will tell if the new bus service works. The service could help people get to work, to school, to stores, to medical services or to other destinations with less cost. Seeing the TTA become a truly Tri-State enterprise will help people who need help getting around to better their lives.
So why not give it a try? The weather is good this time of year. Finding the bus schedules and planning a route can be a bit taxing at first, but so are a lot of things we learn, such as e-mail. Riding the bus takes longer than driving a car, but it can cost a lot less.
TTA-Ohio has started a valuable public service, but it won't be around long if it's not used. We should at least give it a try.
