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PrintI guess I have been an environmentalist on and off since my high school days from 1969 to 1972. I helped start and volunteered at our town's first recycling center, participated in the first Earth Day and planted trees on Arbor Day. Our efforts were noble but meant very little. Now my own efforts are small. I gave up driving by choice and laws 10-plus years ago. I walk to work and to downtown and use our dependable transit to get groceries and run errands. As I walk around I see car after car with one person? A transit bus with four or five riders? We as Americans need to be the leaders of the free world by showing other countries how our world environment can be cleaner and earth-friendly. Money is needed for this to be accomplished, and money, like manure, does no good unless it gets spread around!
Comments
Public Transit works if you actually make it work for you.
And if you support it with a massive subsidy!
In the immortal words spoken during the FY2008 Columbia City Budget Hearings on this same issue spoken by our present Mayor "Some things you just have to subsidize".
Some politicians actually know the reality of the Public Transit issues going on across our entire nation because they tend to travel around to other cities and talk to other Mayors and city government officials on this same issue to try and come up with better ideas.
If you cut taxes and subsidies to the National Public Transit System you cut the throats of those citizens in this nation who depend upon Public Transit to get to work daily.
That is alot of citizens.
Here's a thought, make users pay the actual cost of the system...
Oh, the audacity! How dare you suggest that people pay their own way, John!
Charles Dudley, Jr. - why is it that you are not willing to get a job? You easily spend AT LEAST 40 hours per week commenting on Missourian articles. You obviously possess certain computer skills. Seriously. Inquiring minds want to know...
@ John Schultz,
In regards to your point that the system should be revenue neutral, some of the costs associated with our current car centric transportation infrastructure is externalized. That is the car drivers don't actually pay for the entire system either. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FWHA), 92% of the funds for local roads come from property, income, and sales taxes. For federal highways, motor vehicles impose an average of 3.9 cents per mile in roadway costs while paying an average of 2.5 cents per mile in user charges such as fuel taxes and motor vehicle registration fees. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/hcas/fina.... This is a direct quote from the study: "In addition to costs borne by highway agencies, there are costs associated with highway travel that are borne by others... One potential way to further reduce (but not eliminate) those costs is to charge users who are responsible for the costs."
I feel that the benefits mass transit brings to our community outweigh the costs borne by the local government.