Oakland Airport Connector–Government at its Worst

Oakland Airport
Connector–Government at its Worst

12/12/09 Filed in:

Guy Span
wrote a powerful
post on the decision
of the BART Board to put itself into serious debt,
in the midst of cutting service and not having the
funds to replace its cars.

Here’s the comment we posted:
The
BART Board’s decision to proceed is a textbook case
of everything that is wrong with transportation
decisionmaking in the Bay Area. Because the benefits
of this extremely expensive project are so obviously
minimal, BART Directors and MTC Commissioners have
made their priorities very public. They clearly
couldn’t care less about maintaining current transit
service.

Building shiny new things is what moves them. The big
question is why. Is this about building political
careers by appearing to ‘deliver the bacon’ when the
ribbon-cutting ceremony finally comes along? Or is
this something darker? Is this about political
contributions from contractors and consultants? Or is
it actual under-the-table cash?

When policymakers do something so obviously against
the public interest, the public needs to know why.
Hopefully, Guy Span can dig into this, and come up
with some answers. Our region cannot afford to have
its scarce dollars wasted. We need transit, not
Disney.

Comments are closed.