Local Campaign Issues: Commuter Vans for Office Workers in Upstate New York

A lot of people are upset with rising gas prices, and do not want to take mass transit. There are a few reasons why this is so. First of all, there are buses that run year-round throughout New York State, however, the long distance buses attract a certain clientele whose dress code is not going to fit into the dress code of most offices. The long-distance buses also do not stop everywhere, in every town that commuters need to get to. For the long-distance commuter, the price of taking the inter-city bus is as much as driving a truck around the New York State Thruway, without being paid for the time. We need a pool of commuter vans in order to help commuters get from town to town, especially now that telecommuting has increased.

The Amtrak trains also run a few times per day, and are not always there when someone needs to get somewhere, and run between major cities only. We need some form of commuting that is more than individual and less than mass transit to get our people to and from work, such as the commuter van pool.

Then, there are the rising prices of cabs, which are very upsetting to a lot of people. A lucky few are able to obtain free rental cars when the vehicle used to do commuting is at the mechanics shop, however, most people are not so lucky. Cabs cost twenty dollars to go almost anywhere locally, and may not wait for the commuter to get out of the door. There are also frequent dispatch delays, which mean that the commuter may need to call up the cab company up to an hour prior to the taxicab's arrival. This does not help the household economy, having more white-collar workers taking cabs does not help the economy. Given the use of a commuter van pool, we could reduce the wait time for cabs, and reduce complaints, while encouraging office employees to ride-share.