Opinion: Pull the plug on VTA/BART; the free market will decide their fates

In a letter to the Gilroy Dispatch, Joseph P. Thompson, Esq.—past Gilroy-Morgan Hill Bar Association president and Legislation Committee chair—highlights just how much taxpayer money subsidizes SCC's “bankrupt boondoggle public sector transit.” Why continue feeding a system designed to be unsustainable from ridership fees alone (which cover, yep, just 1% of costs), and needing the constant crutch of residents' cheddar?

It is difficult for taxpayers to have a happy anything, Thanksgiving Day, or otherwise, when we are being forced to subsidize bankrupt boondoggle public sector transit with our gas taxes.

Seniors like my 101-year-old Mom, who’s quarantined with Covid, cannot afford to pay for gas, food, utilities, etc., and also pay taxes the highest levels ever suffered by taxpayers in this once-Golden State. VTA and the other bankrupt boondoggles, Caltrain, ACE Train, SMART Train, Amtrak, BART, etc., are only kept running by ever-increasing taxpayers’ subsidies.

We have a situation in California where unelected “directors” run the transit agencies, hemorrhaging our money down insolvent black holes, next to be joined by Supermassive Black Hole Bullet Train. It ain’t transportation. It’s wealth redistribution.

Transportation is UPRR. Taxis. Shuttles. Uber and Lyft. All of which have their fares/rates cover their expenses/costs, unlike the transit boondoggles. So, we have a double standard in transport funding. Motorists pay 102% of our costs. Transit systems’ riders pay only about 1% of their fully amortized costs. Then they cover up their insolvency levels by reporting financials not based on GAAP accounting rules, just like Enron did, and Bernie Madoff.

It’s been worsening since Don and Perry were VTA’s chairs. For whose benefit? Not taxpayers, that’s for sure. You know who’s making money transporting empty bus and rail seats? Guess.

This article originally appeared in the Gilroy Dispatch. Read the whole thing here.

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