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Tag: mass transit

All that glitters is not gold... sometimes it's "Silver" and sometimes it really sucks!

By Nick, Section News
Posted on Tue May 05, 2009 at 03:46:52 PM EST
Tags: Grand Rapids, Election, voting, mass transit, tax hikes, Silver Line (all tags)

Just got back from the polls here in Grand Rapids. Yessir, I voted.

And since you are curious (or I like to imagine a few of you are) and I'm not shy I'll tell you a secret, too.

Grand Rapids voters today are being asked to approve another giant tax hike (it's a $110 million project) to expand bus service down South Division, the street that cuts the River City in half, running north to south. The project is being touted as a way to create 189 jobs at the bargain basement cost of $582,000 each.

There's already bus service that runs down South Division but apparently we need MORE bus service running down South Division. Technically the "new" service is probably a little bit flashier than that but when you boil it down, it's just another bus line. They're calling this one the "Silver Line." (The old busses are the "Bronze Line" I presume.)

If (or when) this new tax increase passes... see, here in Grand Rapids we fashion ourselves very progressive, metropolitan, green-friendly... hippie-light... the local mass transit boosters will invariably get started on next year's campaign for the "Gold Line."

2011 will bring Platinum. 2012 we'll have Diamond. By 2025 they'll be making up precious metals and gems. The Adamantium Line in 2030 will offer doorstep-to-doorstep service anywhere in the Lower Peninsula via a new three billion dollar annual tax levy exclusively on residents of Ada.

For whatever it was worth, I voted NO and would have done so twice, had I been blessed with as few scruples as your average ACORN community organizer.

Better yet, I rode my green Schwinn mountain bike down Eastern, a street that runs parallel to the Silver Line's proposed route, to get myself over to my voting booth. Never let it be said that Nick De Leeuw isn't willing to do his part for Mother Nature.

Now if only every Silver Line booster would make the same commitment I made, we could save the city from smog, the planet from humans, South Division from traffic congestion, homeowners from foreclosure and the singles in my wallet from abject loneliness.

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