How you can help with the Metro Bond Measure

npGREENWAY was represented at the Metro Bond Measure meetings last night and on Wednesday. Stay tuned for more information and how you can help in a tangible way.

One Response to How you can help with the Metro Bond Measure

  1. rickyragg January 29, 2006 at 5:55 am #

    Hey Scott,

    Part rhetorical, part satirical,
    part serious. All real. The poke at the gratuitous “jobs” bit was pretty honest.

    But y’know, if you can get people to vote to tax themselves to pay for the trail(s?), more power to you.

    It’s my opinion, however, that any sense of priority is sorely lacking in the use of public dollars these days.

    Other “public” projects, like the tram, MAX, the transit mall, etc. make yours (almost) look like a good deal by comparison.

    At least yours isn’t for the benefit of developers (like the tram and SoWa), or some entrenched bureaucracy like Tri-Met where the project’s value to the general public is less than nil.

    These boondoggles are close to reaching critical mass (NPI) in terms of the public’s awareness as huge wastes of their tax dollars. I know that’s not your group’s fault but it will be, at least peripherally, your group’s problem.

    Metro will increasingly be a target for taxpayer scrutiny as a large, somewhat vaguely understood layer of the aforementioned bureaucracy. Some of the attitudes I decry on the part of “bad” bicyclists seem to be shared by at least some of the Metro councillors – or at least that’s the perception. Given the cannibalistic tendency of bureaucracies when competing for limited funds, it WILL get worse – and may never get better.

    I hope you have contingency plans to try to get your project done via other means of funding. It may have just the right “taste” and price tag for private funding.

    Re:Albright

    Your comments concerned me insofar as they seem to be based on views I don’t share about the boundaries between an individual’s rights and his or her responsibilities to the community.

    I’m probably mischaracterizing it, but your attitude about motorists v. bicyclists sounded a little like that of the white man toward native Americans – “They’ll just have to get used to us.”. I think that’s the wrong approach.

    There’s no quicker way to organize a previously mildly irritated, random bunch of motorists than the “f**k you” attitude of a significant proportion of bike riders these days. I can’t see that being a goal for any bike rider.

    Live and let live (and drive and ride carefully) is probably the only long-term, reasonable approach. Randy Albright’s attitude does nobody any good (except maybe to feed his ego) and only serves to further piss off those who otherwise wouldn’t be.

    Thanks, Randy.

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