Where have you been Phoenix Councilman Sal DiCiccio when your office admits that you were not provided an opportunity to review the schedule prior to it being finalized (regarding the elimination of Express 540 that serves Ahwatukee Foothills)?
I was also in attendance at a meeting in a Chandler restaurant when you wouldn’t even discuss our issue when it was brought up by us at that time. That was several months ago. We have gotten petitions signed on all the 540 bus scheduled runs and I do not believe that the ridership was as low as your office has stated in writing.
Now as far as the May 17 meeting goes, I can send you newspaper articles which stated that the “elimination of the 540 was tabled until further study could be made” and I was one who spoke at the meeting and was quoted in three articles that I saw. So this was not approved as stated in your memo at that time.
As far as the bus schedule works, simply put in an insert stating that the changes that appeared to be finalized are not accurate due to Councilman DiCiccio not having an opportunity to review the schedule prior to printing.
Why were we not told the truth and were led into thinking that there would actually be further research done prior to making a final decision? September’s meeting was mentioned as a time frame to complete the review and one gentleman even got up and said, “Leave it alone until January 1, 2013. We have it in our budget now for that length of time.” So how was this motion railroaded through without the people involved knowing about it?
As far as your statement goes about “if warranted based on ridership data, Phoenix will request that RPTA make necessary changes to the schedule,” it should be added IF Phoenix has the opportunity to review such a schedule.
When is the next election for Phoenix City Council? I will follow that one real close Mr. DiCiccio.
Gayle Platt
