How many fewer fatalities and injuries on the highways would we see if tax dollars for highway safety were not diverted to public sector transit, as in, empty bus seat transport?
If voters are unhappy with how highway safety tax dollars get diverted to wasteful public sector transit, could we recall the transit agency directors who divert our taxes to reward the powerful vested interests who control transport policy? No. Unelected, e.g., appointed transit agency directors, are not subject to the constitutional remedy of recall because they are appointed to office, not elected.
Forgive me, but I repeat what I said giving the eulogy at San Benito County Health Nurse Janet Graham’s funeral at her church in Hollister after she was killed in a cross-over collision on Highway 25, and what I begged SBCCOG’s directors to do when she sent me there to beg them to make Highway 25 a “safety corridor.”
In following the National Transportation Policy, 49 USC 13101, I’ve seen our elected officials say one thing, and then do the opposite.
Caveat viator.
Joseph Patrick Thompson
Charter member SBCCOG Citizens Transit Task Force
