Saving the bus system

Bob Liming doesn't fit the stereotype of a bus rider.

He brings home a salary reflecting 32 years of state government work, starting with his job as press secretary for Republican Gov. Jim Edwards in 1974.

He maintains an investment account for his retirement years and rents a downtown apartment at Senate Plaza, where a train set chugs through a tiny village - Liming loves trains, loves to travel - in his living room. Yet Bob Liming, 60, is the public face of the debate over bus service in Columbia.

He got so riled up when he heard routes and schedules might be cut that he made use of his background in politics and PR to organize the Save Our Buses Task Force.

He pulled together a group of 22 business and political leaders who have allowed their names to be used to lobby for a car fee in Richland County that would go toward transit.

The final vote is Oct. 3.

"The idea was to show all the government folks, 'This is a diverse group; these are community leaders who represent a wide cross section - race, religion, politics. We want this. We need this,'" Liming said.

Rusty DePass, a Republican activist, applauded Liming for recognizing what needed to be done.

"The leadership of this community needed to speak to that" issue, DePass said, "and Bob was the guy - with some fear and trembling - who stepped up to the plate and put that group together."

Severe vision problems keep Liming from driving.

A childhood accident damaged his eyesight and, despite many medical procedures over the years, he's practically blind.

He hasn't driven -"at least legally," he said with a laugh - since he was a teenager.

His dry sense of humor and cynicism about politics exploit the "blind" metaphor when he gets on his soapbox about transit.

Columbia's too big a city to be without public transportation, he said, and elected leaders on the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority just haven't shown leadership on the issue.

"The blind guy's asking, 'Where's the vision?'"

Five days a week at 7:05 a.m., Liming catches the No. 8 coming into town at Pendleton and Bull streets.

He takes the bus to his job at the state Department of Health and Human Services on Main Street.

"My stop doesn't have a shelter," he said. "Even in Bombay they have bus shelters."

But he said riding the bus has enriched his life.

He knows the driver now, the passengers -"people who I probably would never meet in my normal social circle," he said, "and they would never meet me."

Among them are folks in their 80s, mothers with children going to Harvest Hope Food Bank, young men who work at fast-food restaurants - and, yes, he said, the occasional drunk and disorderly.

Liming has been riding the bus for the past 10 years or so.

Before that, he wouldn't have thought twice about the bus system.

"I would've opposed it," he declared. "I would've said it was an unnecessary frill."

Now, as a regular user, he sees the bus system as essential and efficient - and getting better all the time. For example, the system now has signs at each bus stop, though there aren't schedules posted that would allow someone unfamiliar with the system to walk up and catch a bus.

Public transit is the first political issue Liming has gotten involved with in a long time, he said. At the core of his argument is his Christian belief.

"When it comes to the needs of people, I'm a human being. I care. I love."

Reach Hinshaw at (803) 771-8641.