0 posts 3/18/2009 2:59 am
Last Read:
6/16/2010 10:33 am
|
Why Spokane Sucks so Much pt VIII
When I last left off it was all about the state selling your labor on the cheap, but this time I want to offer something a little more progressive. At this very minute in the offices of the Spokane Regional Transportation Commission sits plans for a light rail system that will run along retired railway right of ways. They are currently trying to squeeze together funding and that looks highly unlikely in the current environment, which is probably a good thing because the whole project is a billion-dollar turd.
The whole thing is a classic example of small thinkers who are so lost in a nostalgic past that is never to return. Light-Rail will always be a bad investment because a common bus can do everything light-rail can and do it more comfortably and faster. In addition to being locked into a static route light-rail is very slow and that brings me to the crux of my proposal. Why let a putrid and stagnant leadership continue to squander money building meager and inferior civic works and expecting us to make do. Instead they have already dumped millions of dollars into something I could tell you was an albatross from day one.
Let me propose instead something more fanciful, fantastic, and worthy of our effort. Why not install real high-speed rail and quit pussy footing around. Instead of clanking along a top speed of 45mph you could be gliding on air-ride<b> suspension </font></b>at 80mph. Spokane could become a futuristic Mecca that brings in workers from distant suburbs, and neighboring states. By installing a high speed rail system all the way to the border at Liberty Lake Spokane could literally steal workers from Idaho. In the past it would have been unthinkable to try and make the 30-mile commute from the border to downtown in the winter months.
By bringing in workers from Idaho we can have them pay taxes to our fair state while being a burden on the infrastructure their own. You see there is method to my madness, work and pay taxes here but shit and piss over there. Are you with me so far? Unlike light-rail which may be cheaper in the short run, high-speed rail with an underground station at the plaza would finally give that structure a reason for existing. For those of you who don’t know Spokane runs their busses off of a single radial hub so no matter where you want to go it involves coming to downtown and radiating out on a transfer like the spokes on a bicycle. Well that was all nice and well when all the affairs of business were concentrated in downtown, but today business is more decentralized and networked. There is far less reason to concentrate everything downtown, by decentralizing public transportation along a series of electric rail stations the busses would essentially be feeders for the rail system. Trust me, it works a lot better than what they have running now.
In order to attract federal dollars it would have to run up into airway heights and serve the airport and Fairchild AFB. Never the less what I am proposing is a very expensive proposition that will be the foundational cornerstone of our energy independence. This is providing transportation, a basic utility while not using fossil fuels, a diminishing resource, what could be more simple? Now of course I lied even here in Washington the hydro rich state at least a little of our electricity comes from coal. Actually I routinely see 30 and 40 car trains filled to the brim with coal to be burned in power plants on the Seattle metropolitan area. It is better that all the choking fumes be made out in the countryside somewhere and the city remain pristine for we and ours to enjoy.
You see I am not all doom and gloom. I have a vision for the future, not only in the broader abstract but also my own personal future. My life is changing but I have deep-seated obligations to the past of which I dare not even speak. There is something moving inside of me, it is a spirit, and the spirit that was in me before has fled. That was a heavy thing to say and I may talk more about it later.
My girlfriend Elaine’s boys came up from California to collect her belongings, but also took her dog, my beautiful Worthless. Her name is actually Liberty but I like giving all my dogs names of ill repute like Worthless and Buttafuoco and cats regal sounding names like Bunford, and Poleminious/Polymer. I will miss my dog, I will miss my love, and will now have to change my profile to reflect a new reality in my life.
It is strange how so many women ask here why men hide the fact that they are married or attached. I was in total denial about how emotionally attached I was to Elaine, all the while window-shopping profiles here and elsewhere. I have only written a few letters and they are always simple undemanding and innocuous probably because deep down I knew I could never leave her. I promised her sister that I would be sure to write many stories about her, and you know me, I can never stop writing. |
I Swami Johnny see's all, knows all, tells very little.
|
