Published: 11/25/2019 11:50:04 PM
NORTHAMPTON — Every fourth Monday of the month at 11:50, Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, D-Northampton, hosts office hours for constituents in an unusual location: the 44 route of the PVTA bus.
On Monday morning, she stood on the sidewalk near the Academy of Music counting coins to pay the $1.50 bus fare. “I’ve got dimes,” she said, pulling coins out of her wallet.
After stepping on the bus, she started talking to passenger Tom Burton, who asked her questions about transportation and taxes before he got off the bus about a mile down the road near Stop & Shop on King Street.
Sabadosa got the idea from another state legislator from Pittsburgh whom she met at a conference, and started doing office hours on the PVTA this fall.
Why the bus?
“You’re going to people — people ride the bus,” Sabadosa said. “Because, fundamentally, I believe you don’t ask people to come to you, you go to the people … You’re not asking them to take extra time out of their day, basically.”
If she asks people to come to her, and they don’t show up, she said, “I’m not talking to people, and I’m not doing my job.”
Sabadosa has done office hours all over her district. In Montgomery, for example, she’s done them at the Montgomery Grille, a breakfast and brunch spot.
On the Northampton bus, she said people have talked to her about a variety of topics, including recycling, affordable housing, and the PVTA.
“Just because we are on public transportation, a lot of the conversation is about transportation and accessibility,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of people talk about signage of bus stops, frequency of buses, why there’s no bus to get to certain places, weekend service, holiday service.”
On Monday, Sabadosa spoke with passenger Alberto Martinez about the PVTA. He was on one of many bus rides of his day — he rides four buses to get his daughter to school in Springfield, and four to get back home, he told Sabadosa as the bus traveled from residential streets to the Big Y parking lot.
Ward 5 City Councilor Alex Jarrett joined Sabadosa and also spoke with people on the bus, introducing himself as a city councilor-elect to a passenger near the back of the bus and taking notes in his notebook while they chatted.
Sabadosa plans to continue the initiative, though the times may change.
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.