I haven't blogged much this week and it's not because I haven't had cranky thoughts, or stuff to blog about, I think what happened is posting something somewhat positive on Monday threw my crankiness out of whack. That and I've been busy. I was thinking about blogging today on the presidential elections, but we've still got many months to go, so I'll hold off on that. I was also thinking about blogging on the writers strike and how it's fucking with my television enjoyment, but I'll save that for later.
Instead, I'm going to blog about something more local and not nearly as interesting, the 520 bridge. For those of you out of the area, we in Western Washington have this crappy little floating bridge the goes from Seattle to Bellevue over Lake Washington. It's pretty much permanently in danger of sinking and as usual, the politicians are talking about and making proposals on what to do about it. Yesterday's news was how the governor wants to add a toll to the bridge in order to pay for the new one. I actually like this idea and have commented many times about my support of tolls to pay for roads. It forces the people who use them to cover the cost and promotes mass transit. What's pissing me off about this story is the amount of the toll they are proposing. The Seattle Times has it at $6.00 to $7.00, and another news source had it at $5.00 to $10.00. what the fuck are they thinking! People aren't going to pay that much to cross a bridge every day. It's like, let us take a good idea, but set the amounts at such exorbitant rates that we will never be able to sell it to the public and end up not doing it at all.
This last election they had a tax proposal that would have paid for the bridge. But they bundled it with a bunch of other crap and it was such a huge increase, that voters said no. So now the rich politicians who don't have to take the bridge, and who don't understand that people would rather spend that 5 bucks a day at Starbucks, want to take a good idea and fuck it all up again. And after the public cry's out, and the toll isn't implemented, we'll see another news story and interview with our politicians scratching their heads trying to figure out why people are upset.
Oh and now that Gregoire has proposed this, I'm sure next week we'll see a news story that has Rossi criticizing it and talking about how he'd have something better if he were governor. Look Rossi! You lost, get over it!
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| Photo by Chad Peltola on Unsplash |
Instead, I'm going to blog about something more local and not nearly as interesting, the 520 bridge. For those of you out of the area, we in Western Washington have this crappy little floating bridge the goes from Seattle to Bellevue over Lake Washington. It's pretty much permanently in danger of sinking and as usual, the politicians are talking about and making proposals on what to do about it. Yesterday's news was how the governor wants to add a toll to the bridge in order to pay for the new one. I actually like this idea and have commented many times about my support of tolls to pay for roads. It forces the people who use them to cover the cost and promotes mass transit. What's pissing me off about this story is the amount of the toll they are proposing. The Seattle Times has it at $6.00 to $7.00, and another news source had it at $5.00 to $10.00. what the fuck are they thinking! People aren't going to pay that much to cross a bridge every day. It's like, let us take a good idea, but set the amounts at such exorbitant rates that we will never be able to sell it to the public and end up not doing it at all.
This last election they had a tax proposal that would have paid for the bridge. But they bundled it with a bunch of other crap and it was such a huge increase, that voters said no. So now the rich politicians who don't have to take the bridge, and who don't understand that people would rather spend that 5 bucks a day at Starbucks, want to take a good idea and fuck it all up again. And after the public cry's out, and the toll isn't implemented, we'll see another news story and interview with our politicians scratching their heads trying to figure out why people are upset.
Oh and now that Gregoire has proposed this, I'm sure next week we'll see a news story that has Rossi criticizing it and talking about how he'd have something better if he were governor. Look Rossi! You lost, get over it!
Comments
Hey, here'san idea. there's something called LIGHT RAIL.