Sick transit inglorious

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Sick transit inglorious				April 12, 2008

There are some truisms that involve so much truthiness that they’re worthy of their own mental lock box. One of my favorites is: You can’t get there from here.

The nice thing about that old saw is that its applicability is unlimited. It might refer to anything from a false premise and hence flawed conclusion in logic to the fact that there is no one bus in the Williamsburg Area Transport system that will take you from Toano to Williamsburg. In fact, it will take you longer to get from Toano to Williamsburg on WAT buses than it would take to ride from many places in northern New Jersey to New York City on a New Jersey Transit train.

I have no idea what Dr. Demento dreamed up this convoluted system of bus routes, though obviously he or she was playing with the same deck as those brain-deads who attribute our water shortages to lawn sprinklers rather than unchecked growth. You just can’t get to water sufficiency as long as you continue to approve monster developments that involve 2-3,000 units.

On the other hand, new developments will certainly add more riders to the WAT system, as long as they’re willing to spend a week or so memorizing transit color codes and they understand that the center of the universe for WAT routers is the Williamsburg Outlet Mall. If you live in the western part of the county, you must accept the fact that you can’t go anywhere on a bus without going to the Outlet Mall.

If you’re silly enough to want to attempt a trip from Toano to William & Mary, be sure to pack lunch and dinner. At McLean’s Grocery you’ll board a Purple Line 2 bus, which will chug up and down Chickahominy Road and then head out Route 60 to – guess where? – the Williamsburg Outlet Mall. There within an hour you may connect with a Purple Line 1 bus that will bounce down Centerville Road to Longhill Road. It then proceeds to Olde Towne Road, which it traverses both ways to get to the Ewell Shopping Center. Back on Longhill, you will trundle on to the Williamsburg-James City Community Center and finally on to New Town, which is its terminus. To get to the college you must transfer to the Red Line.

Or, back at the Outlet Mall, you might have lucked out and transferred from the Purple Line 2 to the Blue Line, which is generally a straight shot over Route 60 to the Williamsburg Transportation Center, with stops on Scotland Street for college-bound commuters.

Another interesting day trip is a ride from Toano to the James City library in Norge. Once again, you board your bus in Toano but must ride up to you-know-where, since the bus toodles over to the library only on its return trip to the Stonehouse Commerce Center.

The problem is that those who have devised this Rube Goldberg bus system have obviously never visited an area where mass transportation really works. They have no clue as to the difference between local and express service, to say nothing of the fact that most people who get on the bus in Toano are not headed for the Williamsburg Outlet Mall. Nor do they seem to think it strange that a trip from Toano to Lowe’s should be an overnighter via the Purple 2 and Tan Lines because the latter stops at Lowe’s only on its outbound trip. Circuitousness is the blood pumper of WAT.

What is needed in this part of the county is an expanded Blue Line that will run directly from Stonehouse to Williamsburg via Route 60, with stops at the malls and shopping centers along the way. It should continue to make stops at the college and somewhere in Colonial Williamsburg before heading for the Transportation Center.

Rather than having two Purple Lines, have one that meanders around all the back roads that these two lines cover now and, after stopping at New Town, goes on to Williamsburg, where it will make the same stops the express bus does.

There is simply no logical reason why someone who gets on the Purple Line 1 bus at Lafayette High School or the WJC Community Center should have to transfer at New Town or Ewell Hall to get to Williamsburg.

The object of mass transit is to get riders off the roads and distribute them to their destinations as quickly as possible, and the fewer transfer hassles the better. While making the Williamsburg Outlet Mall the Atlanta or Charlotte hub of James City sounds goosy, the fact is that we’re talking about trips of only 10 to 12 miles from Toano to Williamsburg, or from town to the Pottery Factory. Is it really too much to expect to do that on one bus?

I suppose so, which is why most travelers will just get in the car and drive to their destinations. You just can’t get there from here on the bus. Unless, of course, your sole destination is the Williamsburg Outlet Mall.