The Real Montgomery County: How Council and County Exec Treat Non-Cocktail Party Residents - 45 Minute Walk to Nearest Bus Stop

Residents in this community have been asking for their bus service to be restored since 1997!


October 30, 2015

The Montgomery County Council recently made $4 million in cuts to transportation services, including the elimination of proposed Ride On bus service to Tobytown that was scheduled to begin Oct. 1. Tobytown is a historically black and low-income mixed-housing development in affluent Potomac, just a couple of miles from Potomac Chase Estates, where I grew up and attended school with kids from Tobytown. Most of the 60 or so residents of Tobytown are descendants of the freedmen — former slaves — who founded the community in 1875.

Concealed in a grove off River Road near the C&O Canal, the community is a more-than-45-minute walk from the nearest bus stop on Travilah Road. Because several residents lack personal transportation — or the money to fuel their cars — many must tread the dangerously narrow thoroughfare on dark mornings just to get to the bus...

... (The county cut an after-school program at the same time.)

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-neighborhood-in-need-of-a-bus/2015/10/30/1b3428ea-7cd5-11e5-beba-927fd8634498_story.html