Bus Rapid Transit is an Oxymoron

There is nothing rapid about bus travel. Building dedicated BRT lanes on highway 41 is a waste of lanes that would, by themselves alleviate traffic. Few people live on highway 41 and few people work on highway 41. Few people would take the bus. It makes too many stops and takes at least twice as long as driving a car. Public transit is underutilized in suburban-oriented Atlanta. Public transit buses and trains are usually empty. Mike Lee is an idiot with a credit card that is billed to the voters.

Commuting by bike is ok on a college campus or in a transit village, but not in Atlanta.  Atlanta commuters will still need cars to get groceries, pick up the kids and drive to work.  We can either fix our highway and road systems or continue to waste tax dollars to support the global warming hoax. Transportation dollars in the US should not support public transit or Amtrak. Private transit should be the goal.

I grew up in Maplewood, a city located in St. Louis County, next to the City of St. Louis. I could bike 3 miles to Forest Park.  Streets were designed on a grid and it was 90% private homes.  Businesses were all on the main roads. I biked 8 blocks to Catholic school. I was a “free range” kid. I took the public transit bus to a Catholic high school located 2 miles from my home.  I’m no stranger to buses and bikes. When I was 16, I bought a car. I drove to school and work and commuted to St. Louis University. When I got married, we moved to a house in the suburbs. 95% of us did the same thing and it’s still going on because of consumer demand.

Cobb County is spending too much and borrowing too much for low utilization boondoggles. Consumer demand for public transit is weak. Federal grants with strings attached have created regional commissions hell-bent to waste tax dollars on unnecessary, counter-productive public transit infrastructure. Georgia receives $21 billion a year in printed and borrowed federal dollars. Grants to states are driving our unsustainable debt and creating opportunities to gouge taxpayers by doubling the cost of everything government buys.   

If you want something to be outrageously expensive, have government do it.  If Cobb wants to spend a fortune on highway 41, let them add lanes.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader