Letter: Bus article like ‘Simpsons’ fable

The recent story about the group campaigning to cut funding to the buses while simultaneously urging the Tri-Cities to contract out to private companies reminded me of the classic “The Simpsons” episode with the monorail. I wonder how much money the owner of the company has donated to Washington Policy Center.

As someone who hates driving and would rather use the bus, I choose to drive because the quality of buses here is no good. In places elsewhere in the state like Seattle and the similarly-sized Spokane, the city runs the buses and they are for the most part punctual, easily accessed and clean.

The reaction to a city having a fledgling public transit system isn’t to cut funding and hand the remainder of the funds to a third party. The logical thing to do would be to audit where all the funds are going and cut any waste. There is also the possibility of the tax being able to pay for the buses being inaccurate because actual population growth and sprawl has outpaced what was projected, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I’ll end it with saying one of the pillars of any good city is public transit.