By William J. Hamilton, III
Coordinator, Hungryneck Straphangers, Charleston

A new approach to smarter transit, beyond the commonly considered issues of vehicles, routes and infrastructure, can bring Richland County a transit system people will want to ride.

Transit ridership has been increasing across the country for several years. Bus transit ridership in the United States rose 4.48% from March 2011 to March 2012, despite reductions in the number of routes operated.

In Charleston, SC, CARTA’s most recent report shows bus ridership in the Holy City increased 12.81%, reaching a record 433,221 Riders in August 2012. The system reached a record low in cost per-passenger in the first quarter as well, before inching up due to rising diesel fuel prices.

Having a transit system people will want to ride isn’t the goal. It is the strategy for success in providing mobility options to riders. If you’re not doing it, you’ll never achieve it.

Fortunately this isn’t an issue where the perfect plan, abstract political philosophy and theory are necessary to deliver results. Bus transit provides constant, measurable ridership feedback on what does and does not work.  Bus routes and stops can be lengthened, shortened, adjusted and improved. Ones which simply don’t move enough riders can be canceled.

CARTA has been pursuing such a strategy for five years. All routes are reviewed for cost per-rider. Routes which don’t meet standards after six months or a year are redesigned, adjusted or canceled. New routes and services are tried. Cycle after cycle the services which move the most people at the least cost are retained and the system increases ridership.

Like any system which implies objective standards and accountability (which everyone loves in theory) it can be very hard when routes you value are under pressure to perform. Even the worst-performing bus route is precious to someone. But it’s also a fact that often, somewhere else, there are more people ready and willing to ride. Most volatility takes place at the edges of the system.

In Charleston, the busy #10 Rivers Ave. Route hasn’t moved significantly in 20 years, moving 99,624 riders in August 2012, 3000 more than a year earlier. Frequency has been increased to meet rising demand. Our #40 Route in rapidly changing East Cooper has had five major changes in seven years, but it’s ridership is up over 70% since 2007.

A new Dorchester Express Route serving a Boeing Plant which didn’t exist five years ago, transported 4,397 riders in its second full month of operation. Changes in the popular downtown DASH buses have pushed ridership there to over 95 thousand per month, increasing over 20% year to year.

While many of us dream of gleaming monorails swishing through stations made of glass, marble and neon, the old-fashioned bus has flexibility and the capacity to adapt on its side. It’s a great tool for building a more mobile community.

However the old-fashioned bus is getting smarter. GPS, cellular networks, the Internet and smartphones utterly change how buses work. In Charleston you can now plan any bus trip on CARTA online. Type your destination into your Android phone and it will return detailed plans for the next four possible trips to your destination, with the fare and savings over driving, working out the walk to the nearest stop and connections between bus routes. Tri County Link, our rural bus service, offers free WI-FI on board now, giving riders more productive ways to use their time on board.

While results-driven management and smart technology can make transit in Richland County work better, community mobility also benefits from neighborly efforts reaching out to schools, non profit groups, churches, businesses and government.

Our Hungryneck Straphanger’s organization divides its time between advocacy and outreach, both trying to get better services and facilities and making sure they get used. Handing out schedules to staff at Hospital ERs and Clinics works. Having the Moultrie Middle School Beta Club promote transit to their peers fills seats. Participating in community festivals like the Blessing of the Fleet raises awareness. Hanging bus schedules on apartment complex doorknobs delivers results.

Since people know their area’s bus service will improve if more people ride and faces changes if they don’t, it’s easier to get the community to engage. Every rider and business becomes an advocate. It takes five seconds to explain it to the Manager of a McDonalds facing the need to regularly hire new staff. It takes longer to explain it to the owner, but after a while the whole community gets it, because everyone benefits directly or indirectly from improved bus service, or suffers if service is reduced.

Organizations like the Hungryneck Straphangers exist in dozens of communities across the US today. With a flexible system, you can adapt smart technology to help riders navigate it, and organizations to connect people and transit within the community. Richland County can build a 21st Century transit system people will want to ride.

William Hamilton is an attorney, writer and 30-year transit rider. He is the coordinator of the Hungryneck Straphangers.

Imagine how different South Carolina would be today if another 15% of registered black voters had bothered to vote in 2010.

If they had, South Carolina probably wouldn’t be suing the federal government to require voters to have photo IDs, or to allow police to require strangers to show their papers. We might have a Health Exchange that lowered the cost of health insurance. We would be embracing the expansion of Medicaid to 344,000 poor South Carolinians – with the state paying only 5% of the cost – as a terrific deal.

“We’re not losing elections,” said SC Progressive Network Co-chair Virginia Sanders, “we’re forfeiting them.” Sanders is referring to the fact that it would have only taken 15% of the registered black citizens who sat out the 2010 election to have changed the results. Nikki Haley won the race by 59,971 votes. There were 387,559 registered, and 168,734 unregistered, blacks who didn’t vote in 2010.

“We have the names and addresses of these missing voters,” Sanders said, “and we need help to knock on their doors. We can provide lists of infrequent and unregistered black voters in any precinct in the state.” Sanders is the Midlands coordinator of the Missing Voter Project, a nonpartisan voter registration/education effort that has registered and educated SC voters since 2004.

“We don’t tell people who to vote for,” said Network Midlands coordinator Bishop Shirley Raiford,” and we don’t just organize around elections. We educate people about the issues and policies that affect their lives and urge them to get involved in an ongoing movement for social justice. If a few more black citizens realized that we have the power to improve the quality of life in this state we might not have the nation’s poorest funded mental health services, lowest Temporary Aid to Needy Families and the country’s shortest unemployment coverage.”

The MVP data base targets voter engagement efforts down to individual addresses. “We don’t have to set up a table at the shopping center and wait for a missing voter to walk by, we know where they live,” Sanders said. “We need your help talk to all of them.”

Citizens, schools, churches and organizations who want to participate in the nonpartisan Missing Voter Project should contact the Progressive Network at 803-808-3384, or by email at network@scpronet.com.

By Rev. Neal Jones
Unitarian Universalist Congregation, a longtime member of the SC Progressive Network

Three local high school students are helping all of us to be more mindful of our constitutional freedoms, particularly the freedom of and from religion. Irmo High School students Max Nielson (who just graduated), Dakota McMillan and Jacob Zupan have filed suit against Lexington-Richland School District 5 over its policy of allowing an invocation and benediction at high school graduations if a majority of students vote to have one, if it is delivered by a student and if it is non-sectarian and non-proselytizing.

Their lawsuit invokes the First and 14th Amendments, which prohibit Congress or state or local governments from “respecting an establishment of religion.” Thomas Jefferson referred to this principle as a “wall of separation between church and state.” That wall prevents zealots from using the power or purse of the government to force their religious beliefs or practices on the rest of us, while also preventing an overreaching government from interfering or intruding in religious beliefs or practices. The wall of separation protects the integrity of both government and religion.

That wall was strengthened in 1962 by the Supreme Court’s Engel v. Vitale decision, which has been misinterpreted and misrepresented for the past 50 years. Those on the religious right who believe that the separation of church and state is a myth mistakenly say that the ruling outlawed prayer in public schools; that it, in fact, kicked God out of the public schools.

This is absolutely not true. The Supreme Court outlawed government-sponsored, coercive, public prayers, not voluntary, individual prayers; as long as there are tests, it’s a safe bet that students will pray. The claims makes me wonder about the fragility of the faith of those who make them. Surely God is wherever a heart has room for love.

In the Engel case, the school board claimed that students were not coerced to pray because parents could excuse their children from the classroom during the prayer. But as the court wisely observed, “When the power, prestige, and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain.”

The graduation prayers at Irmo High may have the approval of a majority of students and may be delivered by students, but they receive the school’s implicit endorsement nonetheless. They are delivered as part of a school program in which students are a captive audience. I suppose students who do not want to participate in this religious exercise could skip their graduation or walk out of the auditorium during the prayer or put iPod buds in their ears or simply endure it for a few moments. But they shouldn’t have to. This is their graduation, too, and public schools are for all the public, even religious minorities and those of no religion.

Our Constitution ensures not only the rule of the majority but also the rights of the minority, which it preserves by preventing a tyranny of the majority. Rights are not voted on. That’s why they’re called rights.

Official school prayer is bad government policy and bad religious practice. It turns what should be an intimate matter into a public ceremony. Jesus was concerned that certain misguided pious people of his day were transforming his religion into a public show. He advised his followers not to be like the hypocrites who make a big display of praying in public, but to go to one’s room, shut the door and pray in private. Jesus understood that conspicuous prayer is not authentic prayer.

Nielson, McMillan, and Zupan may be students, but they are teaching an invaluable civics lesson on the meaning of separation of church and state, religious liberty and democratic government. Their lawsuit is proof that we have failed to learn the lesson.

The Rev. Dr. Jones is president of the Columbia Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Columbia.

Tell Them Action Alert!

Yesterday, Governor Haley vetoed the Cervical Cancer Prevention Act, which would have provided optional information to middle school students and their parents on the importance of preventing HVP and cervical cancer.

Just 5 years ago, Representative Haley co-sponsored a bill that would have mandated students receive the HPV vaccination. My how the political winds have shifted!

Click here to tell Gov. Haley to stop playing politics with our children’s health.

Do you believe all South Carolinians have the right to receive public health information designed to protect them from infections and diseases?  Sign Tell Them’s Bill of Rights.

The 119th Session of the South Carolina General Assembly ended on Thursday (they will be meeting this week to discuss the budget). Over the past two years, Tell Them advocates and partners sent over 20,000 emails, communicating with all 170 members of the South Carolina legislature.

Tell Them focused on 8 bills and budget provisos this session. Here are some highlights from the session:

* DEFEATED the Right to Refuse Act (aka the Health Care Freedom of Conscience Act) and protected patients’ rights to unfiltered information and services from health care providers
* HELPED TO MAINTAIN FUNDING for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) to hundreds of needy South Carolinians
* WIN! Maintained coverage for services for victims of rape and incest and ensuring complete access to health care options
* NEUTRALIZED the Provider Liability Burden (aka the Born Alive Bill) and allowed doctors to continue making the best medical decisions for their patients.

Tell Them’s 10,000 members have made a tremendous impact on our state. As efforts to limit access to reproductive health care continue, we will remain a powerful voice for reproductive justice and responsible health care policies in South Carolina.