Ferrari Mailing List: NFC: Irony of Ironies

[Rich (Rich355]

Leftists in Oregon despise SUV's, but because of their recent record snowfall, 
and the city's inability to remove the snow, only SUV drivers were able to get 
around Portland and help snowbound people in need. Even the local paper pointed 
this out to the Loco leftists that run the city and infest it's neigborhoods.
Gotta love it ! Wanna bet they have an SUV tax too in the works soon.
Rich

Paying the price in a 'city that (not always) works'
Posted by gbarnett December 31, 2008 17:20PM
Dave Lister 
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2008/12/paying_the_price_in_a_city_tha.html

I take seriously the responsibilities of being a good citizen. During 
November's leaf fall, I dutifully donned my galoshes and raked the leaves 
from the storm drain by my house several times a day to keep the water 
flowing. A week ago on Christmas Day, I chopped the ice and shoveled the 
snow off my sidewalk so pedestrians would be safe. I even considered 
tackling the 3-foot berm left by the city's snowplow that was keeping all of 
us trapped in the neighborhood. But I knew it was beyond my physical 
capabilities.

As I contemplated another day under winter house arrest with our Christmas 
celebrations postponed, I became bitter. I was doing my part, but was the 
city doing its part?

During our 12 days of Christmas storm, local media praised the valiant 
efforts of personnel from both Portland's and Oregon's transportation 
departments as well as TriMet for keeping the city moving. I share that 
praise. Those folks were doing absolutely the best they could with what they 
had to work with. But what they have to work with is determined by the 
policymakers and planners who oversee them. Considering that a third of our 
city's public transportation system was down, virtually all side streets 
were impassable and trash collection was suspended for two weeks, I give 
those planners and policymakers a solid "F."

Being told to wait for the thaw is not acceptable.

PDOT spent about $2 million keeping the major arterials open during the 
storm. Mayor Sam Adams (formerly transportation commissioner and who, as 
mayor, is going to keep the Office of Transportation under his control) has 
expressed concern about covering that unexpected expense. But let's put it 
in perspective. The city's all-funds budget is about $3 billion. The general 
fund is about $500 million. Four-tenths of 1 percent of the general fund 
covers the storm.

Then consider other city spending. Mayor Tom Potter's visioning project cost 
$1.5 million. The engineering study for the Burnside-Couch couplet, an idea 
that does not seem to be wildly popular, came in at $2.4 million. Had our 
leadership forgone just those two items, PDOT would have had double the 
resources for the storm.

They say that plowing the side streets along with the main streets would 
have cost a million dollars a day. But 10 days of that would still cost only 
2 percent of the general fund budget, and I don't believe for a minute that 
way more than 2 percent is not routinely squandered on ridiculous budget 
items every year.

The economic impact of the storm, not only on the private sector but also to 
the city and to TriMet, is huge. Dan Yates, president of the Portland 
Spirit, reports that cancellations of holiday cruises resulted in the loss 
of nearly 8,000 payroll hours and a quarter-million in revenue. And that's 
just one business.

When you consider all of the lost payroll and revenue dollars for 
holiday-dependent retailing, restaurants and service work, the impact is 
incalculable. TriMet, primarily funded by payroll taxes, will take a huge 
revenue hit, as will Portland because of lost business tax revenue.

The argument, of course, is that this was a once in 40-year event. In terms 
of snowfall it was. But it wasn't a rare event in terms of the impact on the 
city. I've lived every one of my 54 years right here in Portland, and we get 
a good winter storm every three or four years. And every three or four years 
"the city that works" stops working while we wait for the thaw.

Our policymakers have worked hard to convince us that we don't need cars. 
Both Potter and Adams have stated flatly that we need to force people out of 
their cars. The message is that cars are somehow evil, and none is more evil 
than a gas-guzzling, carbon dioxide-belching SUV. With the mass-transit 
system down and small cars unable to get to the main streets, isn't it 
ironic that the only people getting around reliably during the storm were 
driving SUVs?

Adams recently stated that climate change may increase the frequency of 
Portland's winter storms. In addition to possibly acquiring more 
snow-removal equipment, alerting riders to bus and MAX disruptions by cell 
phone and increasing stockpiles of de-icing chemicals, he wants to develop a 
database of volunteers who will be willing to help people get around. Those 
volunteers will be driving -- you guessed it -- SUVs.

Dave Lister is co-founder of Integrated Data Concepts and a contributing 
editor to Brainstorm NW magazine.