Not So Sunny

In her column in this week's Herald-Independent, Sunny Schubert takes alder Chad Speight and I to task for supporting Monona Express bus service.

The column is almost everything we have come to expect from Sunny: snarky and sarcastic - and funny. (Note: the original post referred to Sunny as 'snide', which was unfair. I got carried away with alliteration.) Where she falls short is in her math and that undercuts the entire point of her column. Like Jethro Bodine, she was tripped up by "cipherin' and goes-intos".


Sunny's basic premise is that the Monona Express costs too much and asserts that we could pay for cabs at the same cost. She uses Chad's figures of 25 riders per day, multiplies by two to get 50 rides per day and then multiplies by 50 weeks to get 2500 riders per year. Her calculation would be accurate if people only had to go to work and back once a week. Oops. Most people have to work five days per week. Maybe she thinks people go to work on Monday and stay there until Friday. Sunny understates the ridership about five-fold. The correct total, using Chad's numbers, would be about 12,500 rides per year.


In fairness, Chad's revenue numbers were too low. The 2008 city budget anticipates $22,500 in revenue from passenger fares for Monona Express, not $16,000 (most riders take advantage of reduced fares by buying 20-ticket packs).


Sunny poo-poos the notion that mass transit imposes social costs that are much lower than personal cars, but facts is facts. Mass transit produces less pollution per passenger mile than personal cars. Mass transit is much safer. Safety saves money - and lives. Bus mass transit is about 8 times safer than driving a car (And commuter rail is even safer!).


Cars require impervious surfaces for parking and roadways, which hurts water quality. This space is not free. We pay for it most obviously in taxes, but also in the cost of goods and services. This use of space is inefficient because they are not used most of the time.

I do agree that the number of riders is too low and the Transit Committee is looking at ways to increase ridership. I think we could get a big boost by slightly extending our routes to the UW hospital as well as Meriter and St. Mary's. Those are three very large employers located just off of the current route.


I drive. I like to drive. I'd also like to have the option to not drive. I'd like to be able to take a bus or a train. Have no fear, the personal car is not going the way of the Dodo bird. But we need more transit, not less.

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I really like Sunny and she deserves big kudos for her work for the Monona Swim and Dive Club (Monona Swim and Dive Club, swim team, Monona/Madison area ...), but sometimes I suspect her nickname is ironical. Cloudy Schubert?


A mutual friend of ours describes Monona politics with a colorful metaphor: each side uses a large catapult to fling hefty bags of poop at the other side. (Did our friend get this idea here?: Giant 'chicken droppings catapult' set up by businessman to protect premises from arsonists)

Sunny is kind enough to direct her readers over here to the blog.



Here's a link to her column.

Monona Express not worth the costs



And just how does alder Bob miss out on all the fun? Hmmm?