MTRA

  After the passage of the penny tax for transportation in Richland County, the Progressive Network thought it would be a good idea to form a grassroots group representing the bus riders in the Columbia metropolitan area.  We met to form what would be called the Midlands Transit Riders Association.  The core group consisted of one person gifted in public relations; one person who could represent the disabled community; one person who had experience in mobilizing people; and me.  I was named the interim president of the group.  I knew I needed someone who knew people on the city and county councils, so I asked a friend from the Andre Bauer campaign if he would be interested in joining our group.  He said yes.

 I attended a couple of board meetings of the bus service and found that they were more interested in getting money for the system than the riders.  I asked to speak at one of their meetings and introduced myself as the president of the MTRA.  I explained to them what we wanted to do, and they were interested.  One of the board members thought it would be a good idea to include us to give a report each month in their board meetings, and to give us a non-voting seat on the Service Standards Committee where operation proposals would be hashed out before taking them to the Board to be voted on.  One of the Board's members ran into my friend at a newspaper office.  My friend was black, as was this Board member.  He told my friend that he didn't like a "silver-spoon white boy" representing bus riders, since the majority of riders were black.  He also called my friend an "Uncle Tom" for working with me.  When my friend told me that, I had to go home and research what "silver-spoon white boy" meant.  I was horrified.  I made it clear to all of the Board members, without singling him out, that I was chosen to lead the MTRA because of my talents, and because I had lived in Columbia most of my life and knew the needs of the community.  

 The first order of business was to get Sunday bus service back.  It had been cut out before the passage of the penny tax to save money.  I went to the Executive Director of the bus service and told him that we wanted Sundays back.  He asked why?  I told him that I knew of some women who had lost their jobs at hotels in Columbia, because they couldn't get to work on Sundays.  I also said that I wanted to get back to church.  Thanks to the TV ministry, I could watch my church on Sundays.  However, there were many people who didn't have that luxury.  His response to me was that there is a church within walking distance of everybody in Columbia.  I suppose that is true, but it wasn't my church which was nine miles from where I lived.  I put together a coalition of church and business leaders to lobby the bus service for Sundays. We also went to a neighborhood gathering in North Columbia and asked people what they wanted the bus service to do.  The overwhelming majority of people said Sundays.   It worked.  We got Sundays back.

 One of the advantages we had with the MTRA was that the Executive Director and the Route Planner did not know about Columbia.  One had come from Knoxville and the other from Tallahassee, so they were not familiar with the area.  That helped out a great deal, as we began to formulate a list of wants.