- Target:
- The City of Maricopa and surrounding cities
- Region:
- United States of America
- Website:
- www.85239.com; www.copanews.com
The Maricopa city council voted 4-3 Tuesday August 18, 2009 to end the city’s year-old bus program. The decision to end the service comes as a shock because the city had recently been awarded $750,000 in federal stimulus funds to relocate the current park and ride location and purchase a 30-passenger bus for the service, the first the city would have owned.
Currently the city contracts through All Aboard America to provide three buses and drivers to operate the service. The monies to fund the program come from a federal grant that provides more than 90 percent of the $786,906 required to fund the service.
In its first year of operation the MaX program exceeded rider ship goals set forth by city leaders and was named one of the top five performing transit services receiving federal funding in the state. Attaining those goals put Maricopa in line to reduce its financial match this upcoming cycle from $251,000 to $226,000.
Despite the rider ship success, city council voted to end the program without giving it a fair evaluation, causing the city to add at least 100 more cars to the already congested 347 route.
We the undersigned, call on the Maricopa City Council to reconsider its decision to end the Maricopa Express Bus program.
The City should hold up to their campaign promises of serving the people, respecting and communicating with the public to ensure the needs of the community are being met. To be cognate of hasty decisions that effects the lives of our residents and the future of our children.
The City should use approved stimulus money for the development and improvement of a public transportation system that provides a better quality of life, reduces accidents and congestion, attracts homebuyers who want a small town feel with the ability to access higher paying jobs, allows families that are experiencing hardship to expand their job search and stay in their homes, access to various food banks in time of need, parents can hold and comfort their children to hospitals outside of the city and finally the bus program ultimately shows that caring for your community is not a burden but a privilege because in that community there’s someone you to call family.
Renewing the contract makes a statement, that Maricopa will not be isolated, and that we welcome all who want to be a part of the community not just those that can afford a vehicle and the gas to run it.
So we the undersigned, the one you call community, your constituents, your residents, your family and your friends, stand together as one to announce in one voice VOTE YES to renew the Maricopa Express contract.
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Support the Maricopa Express Bus Program petition to The City of Maricopa and surrounding cities was written by Rosalin Sanhadja and is in the category Roads & Transport at GoPetition.