Smashed Metro Bus Windows

[elfs]

Smashed Metro Bus Windows

The other day I took the bus home from work, and saw that the two windows behind the driver's seat had been smashed. "I guess some people just don't like the bus," he told me. Even worse, it turned out that Metro knew about the problem and didn't have a bus to spare, so they pressed this broken bus into service, taping up the damage to warn people away from the potential harm.

Man, those are my tax dollars someone just smashed. His own, too.

I've always wondered why the most rabid anti-tax Republican is pro-road but not pro-transit. If the goal as "someone who governs" is to provide people-moving capabilities from one place to another, the mix of roads and mass transit would seem to be ideal: both are supplmented by non-transit, non-auto fees of some kind. I think roads are just so ubiquitous and seemingly invulnerable that we just see them, we don't think about them. It's the fragility and daily maintenence that gnaws on the conscience.

Metro just raised all prices by 25¢ to 50¢ depending on the route and time of day. The state's budget is taking a huge hit in the next two-year cycle; I hope that our county gets the mix right, because there's a lot of commuter pain coming down.

Comments

[resonant.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what every other business out there is doing, too. If you have friends in government, things go your way.

Trentway-Wagar (a for-profit non-government business) just used its political connections to get PickupPal shut down.

Bell Canada (a for-profit non-government business) just used its political connections in the CRTC to justify its sabotage of competitor's internet bandwidth.

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/535185

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jLxqkhAVRuRJ1VTeFBqUd6ADrpzw

Which has nothing to do with the original topic of public transit.