What comes first..

The Night Owl or the um..

However, hospitality workers who attended an RTA board meeting on Tuesday (May 23) said the three RTA representatives who participated in the "Night Owl" bus ride did not get the full experience of the late-night trip.

Lita Farquhar, a member of the Hospitality Workers Committee who was on the ride, told RTA commissioners that the group missed the first bus they intended to take. Then, while they had said they would ride the whole route, Farquhar said that when one of the workers decided to get off the bus and walk home, RTA representatives also got off -- about an hour and a half before the bus finished its route.

"They were paid to be there and agreed to experience the incompetence of the Night Owl, but decided to get off before the end of the route," Farquhar said. Aside from critiquing RTA's commitment to the full ride, Farquhar also argued against RTA's finding that ridership is low during the Night Owl. She said ridership is low not because demand is low, but because the Night Owl's service is poor.

She and others are calling on the RTA to increase the number of buses, routes, and stops, and to launch a shuttle in the downtown area to bring workers to stops.

Augustine says a few times in this article that "the demand isn't there" for increased late night service. But the complaints of the ridership and event RTA's own numbers provided in the article seem to suggest otherwise.  Anyway.. 24 hour town with a workforce that can't afford to live near the 24 hour jobs anymore.  Better find a way to get them to work.