[green9693]

[SIZE=3]Hi,
I'm trying to write a paper on Omaha's transportation system, and i will need a little help from you. When I came to Omaha as a college freshman, few months ago, I was excited to find out that I would be able to drive a car, but I hadn't realized that I was underage, so i had no choice but to ride to college by bus as there was nobody to take me to college or there was no subway system. I should have checked out the transportation system out here before coming, but I didn’t. Riding the bus was kind of head ache as it took really long to travel from my location to college, it didn’t go to some location like sarpy, and I think it didn’t ride on late night like around 10pm either. I do want to ride by bus too as it would relieve me from such high car insurance and i will have more time to do stuff when riding a bus, although i still love driving. So I decided to write a paper on this to see if I can find any solution to this problem, with the help of public views on this. I think that it is possible but it might be a bit too expensive to keep things more ‘green’, and it will take a pretty long while looking at the economic condition as of 2011. I’m trying to ask people around my college and classmates what their view are on this topic, and when I was researching, this web page popped up so I thought I’d give a try here as well. I’d really appreciate your view on this topic “Omaha transportation system” (that sounds kind of like a bias over other cities in Nebraska but then I don’t know much about the other cities in Nebraska and Omaha seems like the largest city in Nebraska.) You can tell me about what transportation you use, would you travel bus if it was flexible or woul dyou still prefer car, what do you think is the problem, or is there anything we can do about it or maybe there is no hope?lol any ideas on the topic are appreciated.

Thank You

Note: sorry for any grammatical errors and a long question.[/SIZE]

[Busguy2010]

Metro has been a progressing transit authority in the new decade. The authority was known as Metro Area Transit (MAT) prior to August 23, 2010 and is not run by the city. Under the name MAT, the authority was thought of as a last resort; something only people who had no other means used. They were known to frequently run unreasonably ahead of and behind schedule, their buses often broke down and the drivers weren't accomodating. Their website was allegedly useless (although I found it easy to use). Since 2004, ridership numbers have gone up every year, prompting some changes like swipable transfers, new buses, more routes in west Omaha and an over-all more efficient system. On August 23, 2010, with that better system, the name MAT was associated with their past bad service, so in order to convey the message that they are progressive and looking to improve, the authority became Metro. Now, all of the buses look the same, as opposed to the MAT era, becoming more organized and professional. The Future can be speculated, but I think before too long Metro will become exponentially better. They should incorporate at-stop information, Intelligent Transit Systems (ITS) and then a more comprehensive more frequent service, attracting more riders, thus commanding more federal funding. The more funding, the better their service will become, attracting even more new riders. It's a never-ending circle.

We're actually lucky Metro decided to get better. Transit systems operate on demand, meaning if there's riders, buses will go the places the riders need. There were practically no choice-riders meaning there was only minimal demand, making for a minimal system. Now, since making improvements, and also adding free bus cards for students of Metropolitan Community College (MCC) and UNO, Metro's rider base is becoming more and more choice-rider.

As for me, I use the bus and I drive my car. I go to MCC, so every day I have school, I walk 10 minutes to the stop and then enjoy the 40 minute ride to school, where the bus drops me off at MCC Transit Center , a TC that was developed by the partnership of MAT and MCC. Really, I'll use the bus for anything that I do Downtown and for anything I have time to plan for. I only use my car when i'm going to be out later than the bus, I have a spur of the moment plan, or when I'm going someplace the bus doesnt.

The reason Metro doesn't serve much of west Omaha is because the densities of neighborhoods out there is very low, which means too little riders per mile to run buses there for now. If demand becomes high enough, they will serve west Omaha. Metro can't run their services in a city other than Omaha unless a contract has been agreed to where the contracted city agrees to pay for services run in that city. Council bluffs and Sarpy County service is currently contracted.

Metro has a history and company information page, so check out www.ometro.com if you need more information, and feel free to ask me more questions.

[billiefan2000]

that and Curt Simon (he runs OMAHA METRO)

hasnt even thought of experimenting with a bus route down west maple between 102nd and 168th (ending at village pointe at 168th and dodge)



that is also why it is unlikely a route between westroads and oak view mall will happen

cause METRO isnt thinking much (or at all) about expansion

[agskinner]

Never was a fan of the bus in Omaha.

Omaha just seems to sprawled out to be effective for a bus system.