Friday, November 4, 2016

WXYZ and Detroit Free Press on the Regional Transit Millage


There's much more on the local ballot than Clinton vs. Trump.  One of those issues I most care about is the Regional Transit Millage.  Yesterday, WXYZ covered the ballot measure in Voters to decide on Metro Detroit regional transit proposal.

Voters in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties will decide on a 1.2-mill mass transit proposal.
I don't agree with the spokeman for the opposition to the millage, but at least he's ideologically consistent in promoting Uber, Lyft, and driverless cars.  The first two, though, are really the present.  As for the third, I refer my readers to Self-driving cars--fantasy and reality.  I think he's too in-love with that fantasy--that, and low taxes.

As for an opinion I agree with, I'm quoting the Detroit Free Press.
Our mass transit is so shoddy, so full of truck-sized holes and gaps, and so underfunded that the mere words "regional transit" are most likely to evoke laughter, if not bitter tears.

Think about your hours-long commute. Ask why it’s so hard, if not impossible, to get to sports or entertainment events on mass transit — or from the airport to downtown or any suburban hub. Or imagine what it’s like to live in southeast Michigan if you’re poor, and transit is your bridge to opportunity.

All of this is why we cannot blow the opportunity on the Nov. 8 ballot to fund our Regional Transit Authority’s initial rollout of a better way, a more integrated and functional system to serve the area.
Not only am I advertising my yes vote here, I just picked up a lawn sign for the measure and put it by the street.  Here's to hoping my example spurs my neighbor to vote yes, too.

5 comments:

  1. Good luck on getting funding passed. Glens Falls has a decent bus system. I went a little over 4 years without a vehicle, did a lot of walking and bussing. I live a half hour bus ride out of GF where my internet is, now. Sometimes take the bus now. It's great to have a half hour each way to just sit and read. I turn 60 in May and the fare will drop to 50 cents for me. Probably start taking it more then.

    Fifty cents for a 6 mile bus ride is a bargain you can't find anywhere else. Except the free internet at the Crandall. God I love Socialism!

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    1. Thank you. I know we'll need it. With these improvements, two of three of the bus systems in the RTA are terrible (I have nice things to say about the AATA, but SMART and DDOT are widely acknowledged to be inadequate to the task). I used to think that Los Angeles had poor mass transit. Compared to Detroit's, it's amazing!

      The one thing I'm looking forward to when I turn 60 is automatically qualifying for an absentee ballot. I'd vastly prefer having that option now, but current law says I have to wait three years.

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    2. That should be "without these improvements, two of three bus systems will remain terrible." Time for more coffee!

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. It's off-topic and the third of three duplicates, so I'm deleting it.

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