We need free bus service

Open letter to the Federal Way City Council:

I just read in the fall Federal Way City Update newsletter about the city council resolution urging Sound Transit to get light rail at least to Federal Way, if not through it. I totally disagree with this and here’s why.

We need to remove congestion so that more people can go where they want to in the Puget Sound area. In addition to personal vehicles, there seems to be two main alternatives that have been considered, other than just expanding roads. One is more buses and bus routes, and the other is light rail. Buses can be routed on any street or road, and schedules and routes can be changed as often as necessary. Light rail is fixed and only goes where the tracks are. Light rail is extremely more costly than buses, even if the buses were free to ride.

If a corporation was trying to decide how to reduce congestion and provide better transportation, they would need to find the method that did the job and was the most cost effective. They would study it and prepare a business case. They would do this because they have stockholders, including the management of the company, and they want these stockholders to get dividends and appreciation in their stock. So they would choose buses over light rail because they get the job done and are way cheaper.

With government, they seem to think they have an unlimited supply of money and they are beholden to no one. In fact, they have our money and should use good business judgment in spending it. If the government prepared a business case to see whether buses or light rail was the best alternative, buses would win hands down. They are cheaper than light rail and they would move more people to more places. Light rail cannot be cost justified and officials should know it.

Sound Transit’s own studies indicate that a very small percentage of the people would use their trains. Make buses free and they would be full and you wouldn’t spend nearly as much money as light rail will cost. Buses could be dedicated to certain employers, such as Boeing or Microsoft. I’m sure smart people would come up with other clever plans for buses.

Please use common sense and quit asking for light rail to or through Federal Way, and ask for more buses and routes — and make the buses free.

Don Dennis

Federal Way

wishes for God

I wish that God would save …

I wish that God would save every child in the whole wide world…

From starvation.

From homelessness.

From being afflicted with disease.

I wish that every child in the whole wide world would never experience war.

I wish that every child in the whole wide world would have a safe and warm home, a cozy bed to sleep in at night, loving parents to tuck that child every night.

I wish that every child in the whole wide world would never go to bed hungry.

Or never cry every night because that child’s parents had been blown to bits in an air strike because of a senseless war.

If God were a loving God, wouldn’t that be so?

Karen Hedwig Backman

Federal Way