PPH Maine Voices: Rerouting Downeaster funding to critical priorities

Selected passages:

When complete, this will put total capital expense for the Downeaster in the $150 million-plus range. Add operating deficits since inception, and taxpayers will have kicked in $250 million so far and will keep doing so at $13 million (and growing) in annual operating subsidies alone.

The Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority’s extravagance brings to mind troubling excesses uncovered at other state authorities: the Maine Turnpike and Maine State Housing, which share the same accountability and transparency flaws.

You can read the entire column here: http://www.pressherald.com/2015/11/12/maine-voices-downeaster-funding-should-be-rerouted-to-much-needed-road-repairs/

You probably need the practice on opening links anyway.  Be sure to read the comments; they offer great insight into the public ‘mind-set’ on these matters.  (We hate terms like mind-set, but that’s a topic for another time.)

           

        

We’re hoping our friends at All Aboard Brunswick and ChoochooRidersNortheast chime in soon; we trust they find the position put forth to be enlightening, and more importantly, in the ‘greater community interest,’ which is sacred to them.  They do care about the rest of us, don’t they?

                  

Which brings to mind the theological aspects of transportation in some communities.

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