Red Rabbit detractors many

GAINESVILLE - The naysayers and critics of Gainesville's now 10-year-old public bus system see a "white elephant" instead of a Red Rabbit, pointing to the many empty and near-empty buses they see cruising streets and roads throughout the county.

One of the most frequent and vocal critics is radio commentator (AM 550 WDUN and FM 102.9 WDUN) and AccessNorthGa.com columnist Gordon Sawyer, who has come to refer to the bus line as the Red Ink Red Rabbit.

A quick search of the AccessNorthGa.com archives turned up seven articles Sawyer has written in the past six years in which he takes continued operation of the Red Rabbit to task.

In May 2009, Sawyer he attacked those in charge of the bus system for seeking some of the economic stimulus money coming out of Washington for the purchase of four new buses and to add one new route.

In August 2008, he suggested the city and county, which were at that time discussing ways to cut their budgets, start by shutting down the Red Rabbit. "If ever there was a time when mass transportation should be helping the citizens of Gainesville, it is now," Sawyer wrote. "But the fact is the Red Rabbit is a dismal failure, and it seems to me going year-after-year pouring money down that black hole is a travesty to all taxpayers."

Just five months earlier, he pointed to the number of taxicab on the streets and roads of Gainesville and Hall County - 150 at that time - as an example of private enterprise providing "efficient mass transportation," while "making a profit and paying taxes."

Ridership has increased by 101,883 since the first buses rolled on Jan. 22, 2001, and for the last fiscal year was at 142,530. That translates to a cost of $57.75 per rider based on last year's $823,000 budget.

And, therein lies one of the main arguments put forth by Sawyer and other Red Rabbit critics.

But people like Phillipa Lewis-Moss, director of the Gainesville-Hall County Community Services Center, which oversees operation of the Red Rabbit says there is a place for the bus system here - even though ridership is not what she would like for it to be despite ongoing efforts to educate people about the service and get more of them to ride it.

When it comes to people who criticize the empty and nearly-empty buses they see, she asks them to "look to the right and left of the car that they are in and aks themselves 'how many times they see a car that will have one passenger as opposed to three or four individuals?' And, really, if you make a comparison between the number of people we transport every hour, it's a lot more effective than individual car riders."

But what about the argument that that's not a fair comparison because those cars and trucks and privately-operated vehicles which are not taxpayer-subsidized?

"I ask them to look at it in a broader sense," she says. "They are still using public streets and public roads and these vehicles are having a negative impact on our environment" because of the sheer numbers of them on the roads and it's only going to get worse as Hall County's population grows and the new residents bring with them more and more cars, creating the need for more and better roads.

Lewis-Moss says it's also a "constant battle" getting people to differentiate between the Red Rabbit buses and the small Dial-A-Ride buses which operate on-demand only and cover more of the rural areas in the county and often, by the very nature of their mission, may be carrying only one person.

How has the Red Rabbit been able to survive whereas other attempts at a fixed-route bus system in Gainesville-Hall County have failed?

"We've done a lot of planning," Lewis-Moss says. "We've brought in experts to continually review what we are doing" and "we don't become complacent. We know the taxpayers have a say...and we are always trying to do the next best thing to improve the service."

She says she hopes there will eventually be a time when "we satisfy the interest of the taxpayers and they'll drive down the road and see our buses and fell very confident and satisfied with the decisions we've made and realize it (the Red Rabbit) is a good investment."

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second in a series of special reports this week marking the 10th anniversary of Gainesville's Red Rabbit, the fixed-route bus system operated since Jan. 22, 2001, by the Gainesville-Hall County Community Service Center.)