Should residents accept our elected leaders’ contention that
they place safety as our highest transportation priority? If they
did as they say they do, then why do we have no median barriers on
local highways while we have empty County Transit buses? Why do
they have money to pay public sector union employees’ pension
plans, but none to construct median barriers? Why are there
millions of taxpayer dollars to study endangered species of fish,
newts, salamanders, etc., possibly laying in the path of highway
improvements, but no regard to the endangered small business owners
killed off by ever increasing fees and taxes exacted to pay for the
infrastructure?
Should residents accept our elected leaders’ contention that they place safety as our highest transportation priority? If they did as they say they do, then why do we have no median barriers on local highways while we have empty County Transit buses? Why do they have money to pay public sector union employees’ pension plans, but none to construct median barriers? Why are there millions of taxpayer dollars to study endangered species of fish, newts, salamanders, etc., possibly laying in the path of highway improvements, but no regard to the endangered small business owners killed off by ever increasing fees and taxes exacted to pay for the infrastructure?
Wasteful spending by our elected leaders has been, and is, the hallmark of our transport policy. For example, VTA had $1 billion to build what MIT calls the nation’s worst transit sinkhole, lite rail, and they have $900 million set aside to extend it and hundreds of millions annually to operate it, but we will wait years for the $35 million safety improvements at the 152-156 intersection. Politician transportation has given us shiny, empty buses and, concurrently, shameful body counts – sleek trains, but dead motorists’ roadside memorials.
COG, VTA, AMBAG, MTC, TAMC, SCCRTC and all the other metropolitan planning organizations, created and maintained under ISTEA and TEA-21, foster waste in transport, pork barrel pet projects rather than efficiency, all the while their boards of directors and executive directors proclaim safety as their highest priority. Who do they think they are fooling? On Tuesday, when President Bush signed the five-month, $14 billion extension for TEA-21, it was a signal to us to demand a change in transport priorities before Congress can enact the proposed six-year, $385 billion transport bill governing transport infrastructure spending at all three levels of government.
I say enough empty buses, too many boondoggles, like lite rail, Amtrak, Caltrain and Bullet Train. It is high time to tear down the Iron Curtain in American transport policy. Let’s tell our leaders we want highway safety as our highest transport priority in deed as well as in words. Caveat Viator!
Joseph Thompson,
Tres Pinos
