Letter to the editor: Down payment for Woodbury’s ‘Fiscal Cliff’

The Dec. 19 Bulletin featured an article relating the Gateway panel will request $1 million in bonding as a “down payment” for a requested $400 million bus rapid transit (precursor to light rail) project through Woodbury.

Previous letters in this paper have described the havoc and destruction these projects produce in the lives and businesses of ordinary citizens with the end result of a highly subsidized (by regular taxpayers) transit operation. I was disheartened to hear references made of reported comments by our own Woodbury mayor and a local county commissioner that we had better be aggressive in lobbying for this at this time because that will give us a jump on other light rail projects.

Ask yourself, fellow Woodbury citizen, did we achieve the wonderful community we have because of grandiose transit projects? I would answer no. Absolutely not.

But also ask yourself, Are we smart to look to a future with almost a half-billion-dollar project that proposes to rely heavily on “federal dollars” ($0.43 of every federal dollar spent is borrowed) to produce an entity which we then will have to subsidize to get riders?

As they say: do the math. It doesn’t add up.

Bob Tatreau - Woodbury

Tags: letters to the editor, opinion