re: B.R bus union protests CATS meeting, shows severity of strike threat: 'We move this city’

Was CATS the bus system being used to shuttle people $10 round trip for football games? They stopped it before this season but you would think an easy $300 per round trip on a busy game day would stay operational.

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A rider takes the bus to work in the morning then takes the bus home. How is that calculated 1 rider or 2 ? I would guess if this data comes from Cats is, well you understand. Cats are Rats in Red Stick

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Every time someone gets on a bus it’s a ride.
For example if you get on at Acadian, the bus goes to Cortana where you get on a different bus to get to your destination then do the same in reverse to get home it’s 4 rides.

BR would have been far better off with the streetcar line...

There's more economics surrounding keeping people employed and providing labor to businesses but it's pretty obvious that it would be cheaper to pay Uber for all the riders. The problem with that solution is that not many uber drivers are willing to go to the areas of town to pick up the people that need public transportation.

Doesn't Amtrak kinda run the same way? Spewing money on something that will never make money. Like PBS and others that need to go the way of the dodo bird. Orange man fittin shake the Etch A Sketch on the swamp.

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The problem with that solution is that not many uber drivers are willing to go to the areas of town to pick up the people that need public transportation.

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I would combine School Transportation and CATS. The bus drivers are pretty good as a group and are able to move students to and from school both on direct route and transfer. Rarely is there a delay.

Logistics would be the same, switch all the drivers over, get rid of management of Cats and just make the bus free. The salary to bus fees would probably be a net positive.

The school buses could run a 8-9 and 4-5 o’clock route for adults after dropping off kids

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Happy to say I have never boarded a CATS bus and have no intention of ever doing so.

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If I ever get on a CATS bus, then my life has made a drastic turn for the worse.

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Capital Area Transit System union member Valeria Jefferson leads union members and supporters in chants by shouting “we move this city” outside of the CATS headquarters on Tuesday, January 28, 2025.

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Hahaha! All 17 people of Baton Rouge! What a joke.

This is going to sound elitist but I don't know how else to say it. I think every moderately big city should have a public transit option. But unlike in places such as New York, Chicago, etc, the public transportation system in BR is not transporting the most productive members of the city. BR is not a "public transportation city". So there is a market cap on CATS employee wages relative to the benefit to the city, as a whole. Increasing those wages is unlikely to have any increase on the financial status of the city as a whole. In fact, it would likely lessen it because the taxpayers would be forced to pay more for little to no increase in value to the city.

I get the demographics of this board are generally skewed in one direction. But honestly, if CATS went on strike would it have a huge impact to the city as a whole?

I know of one couple that wouldn't be able to get to work if it weren't for CATS. The man is also disabled and they are interracial to boot.

They sit on the corner of Bluebonnet and Perkins at the bus stop and hold a little sign asking for money. A bus strike would be detrimental to them.