Monday, April 23, 2007

Free Ride

Last week, local amusement park Kings Island, was getting all kinds of flack after it decided to stop paying for special buses to transport teens with jobs at the park up from Cincinnati. In past summers, city teens have been able to use the buses as transportation to work at the park during the summer months. The buses ran on schedules that matched the shift times. Late last week, the city of Cincinnati and the park worked out a deal where the city pays about two-thirds and the park one-third of the costs.

First off… it's Kings Island's right to stop financing this benefit. It's the bottom line. They're in business to make money and if it's not beneficial financially for them, they have every right to cancel it. If it is financially beneficial, than Kings Island made a mistake in canceling the service.

But what bugs me the most about it is the special treatment that is being made for kids in the city at the expense of Kings Island and now the city taxpayer. It's assumed by everyone that someone else should be responsible for getting kids living in the city to work. If a young girl out in Brown County wants to work at the park, she has to find a way to get there herself. She doesn't have the advantage of access to a bus that will come to her town, pick her up in time to get to her shift and then take her back home when it's over. I had to find a way into work myself this morning. My company didn't have a limo waiting in my driveway to make sure I got in on time. When did publicly financed transportation to a summer job become a right?

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