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Santa's sled is stuck in traffic
Thursday, December 17, 2015 16:03
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Sometimes seasonal doggerel contains universal truth. Here's an example about a Boston-area infrastructure issue from James Aloisi, a former state transportation official. Like me, he can't figure out why the Massachusetts body politic can't get their collective heads together around the truism that a strong–and expanding–mass transit system is the difference between a city and a world class city. He also recognizes that a failure to invest in such infrastructure assesses a hidden tax on the many people in a metropolitan area–in the form of longer commute times, a need to purchase cars, and limitations on employment–and on the businesses in that area–in the form of a reduced labor force pool and congestion of roads that adds to the cost of transporting goods.
Excerpts:
To commuters and riders
With a simple request:
For transit mobility,
Why not the best?
And history repeats itself
Many times over
As voices of retrenchment
Get bolder and bolder.
More yappy than beagles
They shouted “for shame!
We won’t raise more revenue
And we won’t take the blame”.
“Reform without revenue” –
The slogan sounds pretty
Until you get down to the
Nitty and gritty.
And then you can see
As you look at the facts
That we’ve shortchanged transit
Through a series of acts
That over the decades have
Caused this decline
Through lack of investment
Without reason or rhyme.
As I started to type
My thoughts flowed like honey:
The T needs investment.
The T needs more money.
More funding for fixing
Systems old and quite broken.
More funding for maintenance -
Much more than a token.
More funding to innovate
So we keep up the pace -
Embracing the future
Means winning the race.
Source: http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/2015/12/santas-sled-is-stuck-in-traffic.html
