[8D][:)][:)][:)]
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/11/15/154811.shtml
Scroll down to my next post for the main points of the article
Beware of the newsmax site! I went there and was bombarded with ads. May have been a coincidence or intentional. Don’t know.
By the way, do you mean “non-partisan”?
Uh, I believe it is “non-partisan”…
LC
I forgot to do a spell check.
I only get see one add embedded between the first and second paragraph of the article. Maybe that’s because of my pop-up blocker.
For those that don’t want to chance pop-up, article talks about a number of cities where voted ror rail transit were successful. Here are the main points
The Rail Transit That Could
Paul Weyrich
Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004
When a President defies the odds and wins re-election the way Harry Truman did in 1948 and George W. Bush has done in 2004, and when that president in winning re-election increases his margins in both houses of Congress, it is little wonder that other issues in the election received scant attention.
I digress. What I want to call to your attention is the support for mass transit that occurred from one end of the country to the other. There were 31 pro-transit propositions on the ballot Nov. 2. Transit was victorious in 24.
Voters no longer buy the proposition that transit is a waste of money. If anything, they want more of it.
…………… Cities small, medium and large voted for transit – at the same time they were giving a Republican president a mandate and increasing the numbers of Republicans in both the House and the Senate.
Clearly, transit has become a non-partisan issue. When told that the light rail program passed in Phoenix, Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said: “I’m delighted. I am glad to see conservatives supporting light rail.”
Our sentiments exactly.
Whereas transit was once considered a Great Society program for the poor and those who had no other means of getting around, now, where good transit is being offered to voters, voters a
Transit should be in favour of everybody whether (in the U.S) you are a Republican, Democrat, Socialist or Reformist. It just makes sense to make it non-partisan.
But as L.C said in a thread (paraphrasing) Who said politics is logical?
I’ll beleive it when I see it.
Anything that deals with spending federal money is “partisan” these days.
Please note: Paul Weyrich is one of the best known Republican political strategists in the nation, and is a close personal friend of the Bush family. The Free Congress Foundation is famous for (among other things) being a staunch advocate for cost-effective and well-managed rail transit. They only oppose “Gold-Plated” projects that certain politicians have propounded as more “public works projects” benefitting their political and financial cronies, rather than benefitting true transportation needs.
They enthusiastically support most conventional metropolitan rail commuter projects and most surface and/or elevated light rail projects; conversely, they oppose maglev as being an expensive “Black Hole” for scarce transit dollars, and believe that pricey subways only make sense in extremely dense urban central business districts, and believe that “people mover projects” are terribly wasteful and inefficient and are not nearly as beneficial as traditional light rail and/or commuter rail.
It is quite true that only so much money exists for transit, but if you got past Miss Iceberg Lettuce of 1963 in the Dec. Trains (I’m in love) and read about the San Francisco bus route which was returned to rail in 1995 and saw a traffic increase of from 1,200 to 20,000 per day, you must have realized that transit WILL work. The 1970s book “Future Shock” predicted such behavior because in an increasingly changing world, we hold onto some traditional things such as things our parents did and this includes taking the trolley. From my earliest days, I heard my Mom talk about taking the interurban from Marietta, GA to Atlanta, which I found out later was the Atlanta Northern and owned by the Georgia Power Company. After I married, I heard my mother-in-law talk about taking the same line to Atlanta when she was a young bride whose husband was on a can in the Pacific. These were good times for these women and had an positive impact on me. I would take a new Atlanta Northern just because of them.
I think that as the success stories grow, politicians will see more value in transit expenses. Except here in Atlanta were state government will not help MARTA and that agency is the cornerstone of any transit plans in this metro area.
Jock Ellis
I don’t have the link, but I read an article that stated that those voting in favor of the Denver transit proposal (that passed) included younger people who had moved from cities that have extensive transit systems. I believe that this information was developed from exit polls that also indicated that the yes vote crossed partisan lines.
It is very interesting to me that voters will agree to proposals for a public service even when it is tied to a specified tax assesment. It had often been said that proposals for action on Social Security was the third rail of politics, but that is clearly not the case now. Perhaps politicians may begin to learn that a majority of the voters are willing to accept taxation to meet specified public needs. Perhaps at least a few elected officials will break out of rigid dogmatic positions and begin to start to put some real thought to issues of the day.
Jay
A Weyrich paper entitled “A Conservative Reassesment of Mass Transit” (or something like that). The gist of it is contained in this http://www.apta.com/research/info/online/documents/weyrich3.pdf paper. Well worth reading.