Just when sensible Americans are seeing the advantages, as opposed to car loan payments, of taking public transportation, the House (of Reprehensibles) has inserted a provision in a bill that would reverse a 30-year-old policy of allocating 20 percent of fuel taxes to mass transit.
The goal, according to the author (Rep. John Mica) of the provision, is to have "the users pay" for highways. Some kind of new, but unspecified, funding for public trans would be at the whim of a congressional appropriation process.
Apparently, the only way for U.S. Transportation to get in the fast lane is for its guardians to throw pedestrians under the bus.
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What's really confusing is why members of the Occupy Movement were exterminated from our cities when they'll soon be replaced by city workers without the means to get to work. How do they expect people desperate for work to get to work?
The obvious response to limited mass transit service is to camp out in front of your place of work.
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Think of how impressed your boss will be to see you at work early and willing to stay late. You could set up early morning meetings in coffee shops that double as your bath or shower facility. You could attend all the after-work gatherings that keep you in the know. You could even have an office romance that wasn't - in the office, I mean.
OK, I'm starting to see the method to the madness. If we remove all the sidewalks, as done in forward-thinking suburbs, we would have more drivers. More drivers means more users of highways and more money from fuel taxes. More money from fuel taxes means more discretionary spending for Mr. Mica's chairmanship of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Poor people can just follow the money, if there was a bus or train to take them.
