someone please define mass transit for this guy?

a hot topic of discussion lately in oklahoma city has been the direction the city should take with its mass transit initiative. earlier this week the city council argued the matter…

http://www.journalrecord.com/article.cfm?recid=99702

OKC council quarrels over mass transit budget item
by Brian Brus
The Journal Record June 17, 2009

OKLAHOMA CITY – The increased frequency of bus service on two routes in the city’s public transit system proved to be a larger issue on the Oklahoma City 2009-10 budget than its price tag might suggest.

Just before approving the budget Tuesday, and after sitting through several weeks of department presentations and largely avoiding conflict in council chambers, ward representatives got stuck on a $169,000 item worth less than one-tenth of a percent of the $840 million budget.“Since I’ve been on the council six years now, there have been no changes in the basic bus system … except to either eliminate or reduce routes,” Ward 2 Councilman Sam Bowman said.

“Every person we’ve heard from in workshop or otherwise has said no matter what our ambitions are, our plans about mass transit … we have got to build on the basic system we have. And we haven’t taken heed of that,” he said. “Finally, we are beginning to take those first steps, baby steps, to build our own foundation.”

But Ward 3 Councilman Larry McAtee, one of two people who voted against the item, said he supports a comprehensive mass transit component of the upcoming MAPS3 sales tax issue and would prefer to see new routes addressed in that package of projects.

McAtee said he sympathizes with users of public transportation, “but we can’t have a bus every place, everywhere, every time to take anyone anywhere in the city. That’s just not a function of mass transit.”

mr. mcatee’s comments strike me as odd. i agree that we need a comprehensive overhaul of the mass transit system in this city. we’ve already outgrown the system that’s in place now, and we should be planning for the furture…especaially with the rate that the city is growing. but that last line puzzles me. the idea of getting people everywhere in the city is the very definition of mass transit. i realize that attempting to do this via increased bus routes alone will be an utter failure, but the idea that the function of mass transit is not to get people where they need to go in the city is just ludicrous. i really hope that councilman mcatee misspoke, because thinking like that will never solve this city’s mass transit problem.

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