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Saturday, March 31, 2007

May 8th Transit Tax - Opposition Organizes

Did you know that you should be voting on May 8th? Probably not. And that's what the folks at the local bus service agency, the Interurban Transit Partnership (also known as The Rapid), are betting on. They are asking for a renewal of their .95 mill property tax, along with an increase of .17 mills.

As you may know, The Rapid's web site is at www.ridetherapid.org.

It has come to our attention that opposition to the tax increase is organized this year. Check out www.stoptherapid.org (also apparently at www.rapidno.org). Some of the facts surrounding The Rapid mirror what we've been saying for years. In short, it's a horrible deal. From the website:

  • "The average transit bus only gets 3.65 miles per gallon
  • Transit buses spew 50 times more pollution and 279 times more soot than a passenger car.
  • Each RAPID bus costs $9.40 per mile to operate. A typical car costs about $0.22 per mile to operate.
  • For each passenger that rides a RAPID bus, the RAPID loses $5.82. Taxpayers (that’s us!) make up that amount to the tune of $30.7 million a year!"
Wow! 3.65 miles to the gallon? We knew it was a bad deal, but just how bad wasn't this clear to us.

The best part of the site is the "This Pig Stinks!" campaign. We like it so much, we've added it to our menu at the right. This pig really does stink! We just hope the word gets out about this web site before the election. The taxpayers of Grand Rapids and the surrounding area need to understand the facts on The Rapid.

1 comment:

  1. [...] by coal power plants (or natural gas), there certainly are emissions. And third, as we’ve demonstrated previously, the Rapid loses about $5.82 per passenger when they ride a traditional bus. The Rapid will lose [...]

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