Category: urban issues

The city of Birmingham is served by the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority, known by many citizens by its much shorter name, MAX (Metro Area Express). MAX operates the largest bus system in the state of Alabama and recently updated its website to better serve its customers The new site appears to be quite user friendly. There are hundreds of metro area residents that would take the time here to talk about how bad the transit system is and of the ways that we need to improve it. I believe a better issue to point out to the community is a service offered by MAX that is not mentioned at all on its new site and should be.

For those not familiar with the area, Birmingham’s had ozone problems in the past. Click here to view the latest ozone alert level courtesy of our county department of health. Whenever the county’s ozone level reaches a point that is deemed unhealthy, several things are done throughout the region. Notices are placed on electronic signs located on our major interstates. Our local newspaper places a small box at the upper right hand corner of the front page of the paper informing residents of the air quality levels for that day. Local news broadcasts’ weather segments include the current air quality level. A look at the front of some of our buses would provide another source of notification; a red flag with a white hole in the middle. A closer look would show that because of the ozone alert, the fare on the bus for the day is 25 cents! That’s right, one quarter! The question is, at that point is it too late to catch all of the people that would consider riding the bus, as they’re walking to their cars getting ready to drive to work? Wouldn’t it make more sense to place this information on the website to encourage riding the bus?