Bikeboy already wrote about this last week, but don't miss the open house set for 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. this Thursday (January 17) to have a look at plans for a multi-modal center in downtown Boise. The project would include a downtown circulator and regional high-capacity transit for the Treasure Valley.In other transit news, Idaho Statesman columnist Dan Popkey is bullish on the chances of local option authority legislation passing this year. Unfortunately, Rep. Mike Moyle wants to delay action for another year by requiring a constitutional amendment, and Rep. Bob Schaefer "might support a tax that's capped at 0.25 percent." (That's awfully low, if the money would be used to fund both highway projects and transit. If people want to vote for half a cent, why can't we?)
Meanwhile, did anyone else notice that Nampa Mayor Tom Dale failed to mention transit in his op-ed in Sunday's paper? At least Sen. David Langhorst made a solid case for local option. Not only that, several recent letter writers have bemoaned the lack of local bus service and sung the praises of excellent transit available in other cities.
3 comments:
Julie, I stopped in to look at the Open House around 3:30pm yesterday. At that point in time, the place was jammed with curious citizens.
There were numerous displays - not only about the proposed Hub Center, but about bikeways, transportation corridors, growth forecasts as pertains to land use, etc.
Hopefully popular interest (on the part of VOTING taxpaying citizens) will result in legislative interest, and maybe even this session! (One can hope.)
Bikeboy, thanks for the report. I went out of town on a last-minute trip (see http://democracyspace.typepad.com/democracyspaceorg/2008/01/the-2008-race-u.html)
so I missed the fun. I am glad to hear it was well-attended.
Just an aside: I heard Mitt Romney speak today, and I can never understand why people who so dislike government want to RUN it.
I see the same phenomenon in Idaho's state government: Why do people who have absolutely no trouble with subsidies for businesses, farms, roads, and Medicare so dislike the idea of government-subsidized transit?
Julie--
Just want to share there is a pretty fair thread going over at the GUARDIAN on this topic.
http://www.boiseguardian.com
The GUARDIAN understands the need for transit and knows full well it will never pay its way. We sure haven't seen anything positive from those in charge at this point.
--DAVE
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