Comment from Anonymous

Making Transit Family Friendly Again - transit has become a service of last resort. With chronic underfunding of service high quality transit is sacrificed for politically popular, network coverage. What is needed to make it attractive and usable is frequency, safety and accurate user information. Technology can assist with information, faring and certain safety aspects. But ultimately more funding for frequency and equipment replacements are required. Regarding safety as transit often falls into a gray or hot potato area for law enforcement, with first responder agencies often pointing fingers at another jurisdiction as to who/where an incident occurred, transit safety needs to be regulated and enforced with the same veracity as highway patrols or traffic policing. And open air drug use, and crimes of despair need to be addressed society wide otherwise people will land and hide on transit. Either dedicated forces, or dedicated assigned local agencies need to be required to monitor and manage transit safety and see that people get the help they need and or are locked up after committing offenses. Transit is not the agency to solve these issues. Transit is a mode of transportation. Lastly making things ADA accessible is the same as family access. Making curbs, walkways, elevators, stairwells, payment systems, and wayfinding accessible, pleasurable, approachable and safe will enhance not just service for seniors and people with mobility issues, but also parents, families and those with multiple people in their party. Additionally residential and commercial development should be incentivized to fund transit, as a mitigation or other measure. We want nice calm communities, but ones ridden with bumper to bumper freeway and suburban traffic will not make transit easier to deliver or incentivize use of it and it will further exacerbate the inefficient use of our transportation roadways and infrastructure. As new developments move in we should work with local Transportation Demand Management agencies and deploy TDM practices to design programs and systems from the ground floor when new organizations, businesses and developments are planned. Make transit family friendly again means removing the stigma from its use, which means making it nicer and putting our money where our mouth is: investment. Build 250 should build better, world class transit. Instead its a race to the bottom while agencies cut where they can to deliver the most service for the people still riding.