ECAT Survey Underway

June 2, 2014

Escambia County Area Transit wants to know how the public transportation system can better serve you.

T has started a  Comprehensive Operations Analysis (COA) —  a study of the routes, schedules and amenities that ECAT provides. Designed to evaluate the system’s existing operations, the COA will also consider priorities for expansion.

Public input about ECAT will be gathered through a combination of community meetings and online survey responses, and this information will help shape any proposed or recommended changes.

ECAT is asking residents of Escambia County to take a brief online survey in order to gather information about how the system is currently utilized and how users and non-users alike would like to see it improved. The survey, available online at GoECAT.com/survey until July 11 asks respondents 16 questions and takes fewer than five minutes to complete.

The COA comes as a result of a 2011 Transit Development Plan that identified a variety of new service needs related to the county’s projected rapid growth. As ECAT does not have the financial resources to simply add new services, this COA will help determine how best to operate existing services more efficiently in order to provide more and better service within the system’s available budget.

Comments

9 Responses to “ECAT Survey Underway”

  1. old man on June 3rd, 2014 6:22 pm

    the article said projected rapid growth why dont we do the rapid growth like jobs that pay a good wage then do the ECAT thing looks to me like we have the cart in front of the horse

  2. Stumpknocker on June 2nd, 2014 6:01 pm

    You could give the govt all control of the desert,and in 5 years or less they would claim their out of sand.

  3. Nora on June 2nd, 2014 5:43 pm

    The ECAT Survey is a JOKE ! It makes them look good for taking our money. If you really want to give them a Good Honest Survey, Google their name and get their Email Addresses and write them with your true feelings about their ECAT disaster and the 4 cent a gallon ripoff. Vote all of them out. If these County Commissioners don’t have enough sense to know ECAT is a failure then we don’t need them.

  4. Bill on June 2nd, 2014 3:35 pm

    Do away with 4cent tax

  5. Randy on June 2nd, 2014 12:34 pm

    get rid of 4 cent tax

  6. Bob's Brother on June 2nd, 2014 12:24 pm

    @Jane. You may not have seen them, but they have a route to Century. As for the 4 cent tax, it was put in place (my understanding) to keep County Commissioners from using property tax proceeds to fund the system. In reality, the bus system is a giveaway to it’s users. The meager fare in to way represents the actual cost of running this system. The Wells Fargo Stage line and American Airlines can’t and didn’t operate like this. BTW, the windows are tinted so that noone can see how few people are using this boondoggle. The ECAT’s drivers are never happy with their wages. The ECAT should be ended.

  7. Mamba on June 2nd, 2014 10:06 am

    ECAT COA Online Survey what a joke! It is setup to make ECAT look good no matter how you answer the survey. I say get rid of ECAT. I would be interested in knowing what the ridership is, why such large buses that are almost always empty or with just 2 or 3 people on it, a really small bus would save on fuel and maintenance and still service the 1% or less that use ECAT.

  8. 429SCJ on June 2nd, 2014 8:53 am

    Why is it that the Europeans can have safe efficient/effective public transportation and we cannot pour sand from a boot with encountering errors?

  9. Jane on June 2nd, 2014 4:39 am

    Let’s see, we pay an extra 4 cents a gallon for ECAT but I have never even seen it out in the north end of Escambia County…..