Get on the Bus

Options.

That's what it's all about. I'd just like some options, a choice. That's all.

It would be nice, as gas prices shoot for moon, to have the option of taking a bus or train to work. Unfortunately, like many Americans, I don't have that option. This country's love affair with cars is taking its toll this week in the wake of Katrina, and our governments, from the federal level on down, have done nothing to prepare us for the current problem.

Officials who have done absolutely nothing to build up our public transit infrastructure in the last 50 years -- Officials who built freeways instead of subways, who let developers sprawl all over the landscape in a confusing mess of strip malls and parking lots -- are now telling us to conserve gas and drive less.

Damn. Wish I could. Even with a hybrid this $3.699+ gas is too much. I can't walk, because nothing is built anywhere near anything anymore. Forget about getting to work. There isn't so much as a bus from Baltimore to Columbia. Oh sure, they plan on building a light-rail line out this way ... and if I'm still here in 2040, I'll buy a ticket.

Let's get it together folks. Want to save money on gas? Tell your politicians to start building transit.

Oh, and I hear the car dealers in Charlotte have all sold out of hybrids.