17 hours Ago By Gazette readers
I just wanted to say I agree with your editorial on the Vision 2035 about public transportation being a mirage. Everything you said there was true. Reckoning on the addiction to the private auto, which reduces germ exposure, grants point to point trip management and, when lanes remain under capacity, much shorter travel times, one thing the government can do is examine how to maximize this resource.
We have learned that the taxicab companies haven’t been able to compete with Uber and Lyft, and Colorado has created its driving co-op service, so private enterprise is picking up the reins. As to climate change, running a multibillion dollar public transportation system that serves about 2% of the trips while maintaining enormous vehicles on regular service intervals is an unnecessary greenhouse contributor, especially since history has shown us nobody will use it in a pandemic. Why not subsidize a rideshare app service that vets drivers and passengers as to safety requirements, and might double or triple the number of multipassenger private vehicle trips, which will then be paying taxes on income instead of draining the public resources? Doubling the private car ridership (about 90% being single occupants) would halve the congestion.
Thomas Anthony Longmont Relating to the FAA’s decision not to fund a portion of Pena’s expansion, consider the following analogy. In a sense, Denver’s elected officials and airport management experience the same challenges as those faced by the Saudi family who are responsible for ensuring that access to the holy city of Mecca is unimpeded for the world’s Muslim population. DIA is one of our nation’s transportation meccas and Denver’s leadership too has the obligation to move forward with the expansion of Pena for the good of its millions of its passengers.
These include not only citizens of Denver who represent fewer than 10% of the passenger count at the airport, but others who come from the suburbs, the outer Front Range, large portions of western and eastern Colorado, the adjoining states of New Mexico, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, our nation, and finally 50 international countries who pass through DIA. Money is available for this project. While it is true approximately 45% of the airport’s passengers connect through the airport’s gates, these travelers help pay for the construction and maintenance of Pena Boulevard through ticket charges and concession revenues.
The sole purpose of an airport is to move people and freight quickly and safely and an accessible Pena Boulevard is a critical part of this equation. This roadway must be expanded to accomplish this purpose as quickly as possible. Jim DeLong Castle Rock On Dec.
11, the Colorado Springs D-11 School Board voted 6-1 to let the district’s “master agreement” with the CSEA teachers’ union, which is a nonelected private corporation, expire. After 56 years, the board decided that a private party should not have authority over a body of public government. Now Democrats in the Colorado General Assembly want to change an 80-year-old Colorado labor law to make it easier for unions in the private sector to force employees to be union members or pay a “representation” fee as a condition of employment.
Our American Declaration of Independence declares that the truth is self-evident that all people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” and that one of these rights is liberty. Liberty in public government has three foundational principles that are self-evident: 1. A private party should not dictate to public government.
2. Public government should not dictate to a private party. 3.
Public government should make no law authorizing one private party to dictate to another private party. According to foundational principle number three above, labor unions, which are nonelected private corporations, should not be authorized by law to dictate the choice of any private person. The General Assembly’s Democrats should be thwarted in making it easier for a union to force an employee to join the union or pay a representation fee.
But also, Republicans should seize this opportunity and put forth a bill to amend Colorado law so that no labor union may force an employee to become a union member or pay a representation fee. The right of any employee not to join a union or pay a representation fee if the employee does not want to is a self-evident and inalienable right of American liberty. James Sayler Colorado Springs After President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of murderers, I cannot help but wonder when he will pardon the immigrant here illegally who set a woman on fire.
The immigrant then fanned the flames with his jacket. The guy will plead insanity, and the bleeding-heart liberals will say the death penalty is cruel and inhumane. Seems like a double standard.
Hang him with a new rope! Denny Modlin Colorado Springs.
