Fourth in a series
Re “Horowitz Explores Expanding Shuttle Across the City”
[img]2021|right|Seth Horowitz||no_popup[/img]Downtown Business Assn. board member Seth Horowitz was rooting last week for the City Council to approve the novel shuttle experiment, a pilot program, as a precursor to a more ambitious plan that would span citywide.
The circuit, from the light rail station, just off Downtown, to the commercial district of the Hayden Tract to its goal, Downtown’s eager restaurants, between 11 and 3 o’clock on weekdays, was to run for nine months.
Some city officials appeared to presume the pilot would run at a financial loss since hardly anyone thought the shuttle could meet the minimum passenger threshold of 124 passengers per hour. Actually, No one had even a broad idea of how many, if any, passengers would be carried on an hourly basis.
“I was wanting the pilot to be made,” said Mr. Horowitz, “so we could show that it was successful, so as the city, the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown and the Transportation Dept. then would look at the bigger picture of transportation.”
The general manager of the Culver Hotel “found it surprising” that when “two or a few” Hayden Tract employers said they wanted their workers to remain at their desks through the lunch hour, “this was used as a basis for a decision. To give this weight seemed illogical and impractical to me.”
(To be continued)
