News & Citizen

Serving the People of Lamoille County with News Since 1881

Volume 123     No 10 No 5569            May 10,   2007 Thursday                           Morrisville, VT 05661                        Web Edition

Scramble for the Amy Wade Fund! by Amy Kolb Noyes MORRISVILLE – Copley Country Club’s annual Alexander Hamilton Copley Memorial Tournament has a new beneficiary. Henceforth, the scramble-style golf tournament will be known and the Alexander Hamilton Copley Memorial Tournament to Benefit the Amy Wade Trust. This year the event will be held on Saturday, May 19, at 2 p.m. Continued on Page 2 Click here to check out the new Lamoille Restaurant Guide Hyde Park Turns Down School Budget Increase by Mickey Smith HYDE PARK – A crowd of over 200 people gathered to discuss and, in the end, twice vote down the Hyde Park school budget on a sunny Saturday morning, May 5.  Continued on Page 2 For Questions or Comments on this web site please contact webmaster at http://www.kingdomsedge.com dan@kingdomsedge.com Changing Times See the Joneses Keeping Up by Mickey Smith HYDE PARK – It’s not just in Dylan songs that “the times they are a changin’” – the Joneslan Farm in Hyde Park, like many farms around the country, have found themselves making major changes to keep up with technology and allowing the “Joneses” to keep up with everyone else. Continued on Page 2 What’s Next in HP and Eden by Mickey Smith  A third school vote has been set in each of the local communities still looking to pass a school budget. Eden will be voting Saturday morning, June 2, at 9 a.m. and Hyde Park will have its third vote the following week, June 9, at 8:30 a.m. Continued on Page 2 Read all the News, Sports and More Click Here To Subscribe Today Looking for something? Search for: Copyright © 2004 News&Citizen Inc. All rights reserved. Have a press release? edit@newsandcitizen.com e-mail correspondence concerning advertising should be addressed to news@newsandcitizen.com

Things Look This Way to Me

Editorial by J.B. McKinley 5/10/07

Our Unseen Rural

Public Transportation System

What the heck is that guy talking about? What unseen, or maybe a better adjective would be “unrecognized,” rural transportation system already exists? It’s simple. The school bus system.

Why can’t we combine our need to get our kids to school with a greater role for the existing system to provide mass transportation to the general public with pre-set routes and schedules?

Isn’t it true that school buses are bought and used only a fraction of the day? Isn’t it more efficient to use  such a machine more hours of the day and carrying fuller loads? If school buses ran their school routes and then switched to regular bus routes on main thoroughfares mightn’t it be possible to buy nicer buses, run on biodiesel, maybe hire full time drivers. It might be necessary to hire a second adult to ride in each school bus and police the back of the bus, keeping the adults separate from the schoolchildren.

Still, I ask, though everyone will see immediate problems with the idea, aren’t those problems capable of solution?

There has to be grant money out there for this kind of efficient solution to rural transportation woes.

Just think of all those ranks of school buses that sit unused most of every day and night. Statewide, I’d wager they represent millions of dollars of underutilized assets. I’m also sure the fleet could be made better, newer and safer if they all produced more income.

The way it looks to me is if we could only make the switch in our minds to thinking of school buses as simply buses, we might be able to think rationally of the possibility of a wide-ranging rural public transportation system. Connections could be made at school district boundaries and geographically the system would be universal.