City cutting several bus services
By James DeiblerFreelance Reporter, The VOICE
The City of Phoenix Transit Department is cutting bus services for the Phoenix metropolitan area in December.
Glendale Community College (GCC) students who work late nights in Phoenix would suffer without bus services after 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
Photo by James Deibler/The VOICE
Many students such as Brittany Garza (left) and Sandra Azurdia (right) rely on the bus for travel.
College students will have to find an alternative mode of transportation to get home from work.
The Saturday bus schedule will be operating on the Sunday schedule, meaning that sometimes the routes would be going every 30 minutes including Route 3- Van Buren, Route 17- McDowell, Route 29- Thomas and Route 41- Indian School and some routes will go every 60 minutes including Route 60- Bethany Home, Route 80- Northern, Route 90- Dunlap/Cave Creek and other bus routes in north Phoenix.
Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the country and has the worst transit system, according to Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1433 (Phoenix) web site.
Amalgamated Transit Union 1433 is the biggest opposing transit union on cutting bus services in the valley.
GCC students and local residents need to speak against cutting bus services if they have any hope of making the situation better.
Al Villaverde, a deputy city transit director from the City of Phoenix, spoke to the Valley Metro Finance oversight advisory committee to say, "because of economic downturn could potentially result in a reduction of six million service miles and $36 million in public transit".
People who live on 59th Avenue and 67th Avenue in Glendale may wait 30 minutes for a bus only to go to Camelback Road in Glendale and another 30 minutes to go to Buckeye Road in West Phoenix.
Public transportation will, hopefully, improve after the new president of the United States of America takes office and turns the ression around to help the working class, like bus drivers in the City of Phoenix.
