Congress To Gut All Transit, including WMATA, Amtrak? TAKE A STAND!!!

[Flxible]

Read on.  I've signed the petition and encourage you to do the same.  We can't let them do this!

http://action.smartgrowthamerica.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=5367

Canada is looking better to me all the time.....

[Antozilla]

Praise Jesus, no Columbia Pike trolley.  Sorry Zimmie

[79MetroExtraMD]

Read on.  I've signed the petition and encourage you to do the same.  We can't let them do this!

http://action.smartgrowthamerica.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=5367

Canada is looking better to me all the time.....

Anywhere else is looking better (even Mexico).

[Scrabbleship]

Read on.  I've signed the petition and encourage you to do the same.  We can't let them do this!

http://action.smartgrowthamerica.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=5367

Canada is looking better to me all the time.....

This makes two of us. I dream of a world of 65 provinces*, especially since I think more and more that the US is reaching the point when most historical republics have reached their shelf lives. If anyone knows about idealizing Canada as a utopia that has zero problems or downsides, it's me. And I know that a Canadian style of doing things on the transit end isn't the best way to go about things.

To be 100% realistic, Canadian agencies get absolutely no funding on the Federal level which means that fares are usually higher than in the US (the average Canadian fare is around $3, and remember the Loonie's at par with the US dollar) and equipment needs to last longer than it does in the US. All the agencies that are still running Fishbowls, Orion I's, D40HF's, GMC/MCI Classics, and early D40LF's aren't doing it because they want to. Then there's the development hell of the Montreal Metro's new rolling stock which has been pushed back several times even though the cars they're replacing will be pushing 50 by the tie the enter service (and the newest ones will be pushing 40). Don't forget how Novabus had a monopoly written into law in Quebec and how nobody in Manitoba has bought a non-New Flyer bus in going on 25 years.

Does anyone really want all that here, or more so would anyone in this area allow for it here between the people wanting low bus fares for the poor and wanting the Rohrs turned into razors already. I love Canada more than the US, but it's telling that every Canadian I know who visits here raves at our low transit fares.


* DC, Puerto Rico, Yukon, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories all deserve provincehood. Especially DC.

[Perry]

http://rsc.jordan.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Spending_Reduction_Act--TWOPAGER.pdf

I don't see where it says cuts to transit.  They do mention Amtrak, which I have mixed feelings on, but why not privatize it?  It talks about grants for New Starts transit and some other grants for high speed rail. 

All of these won't get approved. If you read the whole thing there are some wasteful programs that can go. 

[Tritransit Area]

There's that "Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. $150 million annual savings."

Is that the safety grant?

They also want to cut the "New Starts Transit. $2 billion annual savings."  I think that's the big thing, so these small cities won't be able to build their fancy light rail systems or glorified streetcar lines while things fall apart in the Northeast.

[WMAveteran]

Thanks for the link.  I signed.  A balanced transportation system is a crucial part of our infrastructure.  These conservatives talk about "taking their country back" but in this case they would be taking the country back about 200 years.