When questioned as to why I don’t get my driver’s license and buy a car, I always answer that my legs and the RTA can get me anywhere I need to go.
For more than five years that argument has served me well. The RTA takes me to Sinclair Community College for my classes and my legs take me to the restaurant I work at; it’s not pretty, but it’s definitely cost effective.
The only problem with my logic is it excludes emotion. The RTA can take me everywhere I need to go, but not everywhere I want to go.
Among other places, I would love to see the RTA add a bus route to the Mall at Fairfield Commons because it’s much closer to my east Dayton home than the Dayton Mall is.
When I called the RTA general information number and asked why the RTA doesn’t have a stop at Fairfield Commons, a representative told me it’s because Greene County doesn’t want the RTA coming out there. So I called Bruce Goldsberry the general manager of Fairfield Commons.
Goldsberry told me the RTA is not a service they would get contractually engaged with because it is up to the city of Beavercreek and Greene County to find need for the RTA’s services.
The Clerk of Council for Beavercreek, Chris Bucheit, said the last time they surveyed their residents about this issue, the answer was an overwhelmingly no for an RTA bus route to the mall, but that they plan on taking another survey this year.
This makes me ask: Why does Wright State University have a bus stop and not the mall? They are both in Greene County.
I have walked from my house all the way to Fairfield Commons, about a two-hour walk, and I can tell you that most of the roads connecting Dayton to Beavercreek don’t even have sidewalks, which makes it a very hard to travel.
If you are like me and want a bus route to the Fairfield Commons, let your voice be heard by attending a RTA meeting or writing a letter to the Beavercreek City Council.
If you feel your opinion won’t make a difference, think about what political activist Helen Keller said:
“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”