225BatonRouge.com

Rum fudge is the last thing I expect on the 6:25 a.m. bus from Prairieville to downtown. But sure enough, there is Matthew Lambert of Louisiana Economic Development holding out to me a plastic bin of the rich homemade sweets. Sitting two rows up with a 60-watt smile is Stephanie Morel of the Department of Environmental Quality. She brought the fudge to share with the small group of commuters who have developed a kinship since the FEMA-funded park-and-ride service began Jan. 30. As the bus rumbles down Airline Highway, Highland Road and 1-10 West in the cool predawn, dim-lit lilac clouds hanging just above the ink-black tree line, passengers talk news and joke around more than you’d expect for the foggy morning hours.

Bill Vincent greets familiar faces as he walks onto the park-and-ride bus from Prairieville to downtown Baton Rouge.

Lambert says two-thirds of the riders are state workers. A handful are with Albemarle, Chase and Hibernia, he adds, and immediately pinpoints me as the “new guy.”

The free buses pick up riders in the parking lot of the Prairieville Wal-Mart on Airline Highway near Old Perkins Road at 6, 6:25 and 6:50 a.m. and make several return runs in the afternoon. At least, they’re supposed to.

I’m quickly told the bus we are on is not the regular ride, but a standby vehicle the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority agreed to supply after receiving a volley of complaint calls and e-mails from riders who were fed up with the inconsistency of the service.

“The past few days the buses have run 15 to 30 minutes late,” says Masood Rasoulian, a construction service engineer with DOTD. “It’s a good program. It saves gas, helps the environment and relieves downtown congestion. We’re all for it as long as they keep the schedule consistent.”

Dwight Brashear, director for the Capital Area Transit System, also has expressed frustration with the service that was originally designed to help get NORTA back on its feet after Katrina. In an e-mailed apology to Prairieville passengers dated April 4, Brashear concedes the route may have run its course.

“The easiest solution is to permanently suspend the service,” Brashear writes. “The reputation that CATS has built in East Baton Rouge Parish is too important to risk on a service that is being contributed to us, but we don’t actually operate.”

FEMA funding for the NORTA park-and-ride program ends June 30, but Lambert and others are not worried about the proposed $1.75 fee per ride that would follow. “We’ve all done the math,” Lambert says. “We’d still be saving money.” They are more worried the Prairieville route has not become popular enough to justify its existence. Linda Gregg, an administrative assistant at United Methodist Church, rides the 6:50 bus a few times a week. She’s often the only passenger.

Morel was the first rider on the 6:25 bus back in January. Though there were the occasional mechanical problems with the buses—they were bought used from a company in Dallas—they kept on schedule, shuttling Morel to and from downtown in an hour’s time and saving her $5 a day in gas. But as soon as early adopters began spreading the word, problems emerged. The drivers are employed by NORTA, and most are evacuees from New Orleans living in temporary Baton Rouge housing. In early April, NORTA began cycling through new drivers, and the changeover caused immediate delays.

“It took only two days of the buses not showing up in the morning to cause several riders to give up,” Morel says. A friend of Lambert’s who was an hour late for work vowed never to ride the bus again. What’s more, the evacuee drivers who passengers had relied on and befriended were suddenly gone.

“Stanley Hall was a great driver for the 6:25,” Lambert says with a real sense of loss in his voice, as others nod in agreement. “We miss Stanley.”

Brashear may be in favor of closing the Prairieville line, but park-and-ride services seem like a reasonable solution to the downtown parking problem that is likely to be worsened in June when two new government buildings open on North Street. Employees of these buildings will have to use the DEQ and Department of Natural Resources parking garages that, by many accounts, are more than half full already.

Morel says the stigma of riding public transportation has kept many professionals she knows from using the bus. It almost kept her away too. Initially she thought the free bus would attract homeless people wanting to stay warm. That hasn’t happened, and she is glad she took a chance.

“The two most common excuses I hear for why people don’t want to take the bus are: If their kid gets sick at school, they can’t get there fast enough on a bus, and that people are embarrassed,” Morel says. “One guy actually catches the bus several blocks away from where he works, so that his co-workers won’t see him getting on the bus. Hopefully people will become educated and not be so prejudiced against using public buses.”