Rick Bannan’s front page January 16 Reflector article, “Governor says light rail needed for I-5 bridge replacement,” reminds us that some battles need to be fought again and again.
By all means, lay down and roll over for light rail if: you want to begin paying taxes into Oregon’s decades-grown MAX tax debt black hole the instant Washington connects to their light rail; you want Oregon’s druggies, thieves, sex offenders, gangs, homeless, “social justice” protesters and “social change” instigators, street-blockers, fire-starters and window-breakers who will only need to spend chump change to ride across the river to your community and prey on your neighborhoods, homes, cars, and families; you think it would be sophisticated and cosmopolitan to become an appendage of the “People’s Republic of Multomah County” and its California-style, socialist, society-degrading policies; you want to pay for planners and bureaucrats to sit in their offices and cubicles in Vancouver, designing more taxes and enjoying all government perks and holidays while cooking up more layers of regulations and “needed” expenditures; you want to spend the wages, raises and tax savings you’ve gained in this growing economy to start permanently financing over-budget, over-schedule, faulty designs and re-does on construction and never-ending repairs and “upgrades” while vehicle traffic on freeways and arterials grows into ever more congestion and gridlock; you want to depend on light rail that only fails and shuts down and strands people during extreme hot or cold weather; you want to struggle for the privilege of paid parking and car break-ins in mass transit lots so you can ride the shiny Choo Choo to Blazer games, concerts and Pioneer Square events.
It’s easier to be obedient sheep than to rise up and take a stand against elected officials, unelected bureaucrats, and transportation “experts” from out of town who will not have to live with the burdens they drop on your shoulders.
Or you could insist on a few new, well-designed, well-placed bridges with no money-gobbling light rail boondoggles.
Then you could travel, commute and shop on roads and freeways that do not routinely come to stand-stills.
Tough decision, huh?
You’re being squeezed, folks. Manipulated by people who will never lose their appetite for lifting and emptying your wallet.
The multi-bridge solution has been staring us in the face for years.
All we have to do is stand up, once again, to the government grifters who think we are gullible rubes, and this time insist on responsible bridge building that doesn’t try to kick us out of our cars and permanently despoil our communities.
