Metro flies route cut balloon, Chron tries to provide cover.

Too bad (for them) the residents aren't buying it....

(Bus riders give Metro an earful on proposed route cuts, Zain Shauk, Chron.com)

Frustrated bus riders gave transit officials an earful Monday at a hearing on proposed bus route cuts, including one that would not be replaced by an alternative.

The changes proposed by the Metropolitan Transit Authority include the elimination of 10 bus routes and adjustments, including a few expansions to 40 others. The agency is proposing to expand service on some routes.

Overall however, the "service adjustments" amount to a severe decrease in service to neighborhoods that most rely on Metro. The neighborhoods that it's Metro's prime directive to provide service. If they fail on this, then they fail on their core mission. And, yes, they are failing on this as we speak, dedicated to building a shiny, fancy toy train that's designed to move shiny, fancy people from shiny, fancy place to shiny, fancy place. If you can keep the dull, plain people OFF the shiny, fancy train then that's all the better.

Meanwhile, you have to feel sorry for the poor. While the left-leaning un-elected Fed bureaucrats in D.C. are trying their best to price cars out of their reach (that's even admitted by the regulations staunchest supporters such as Thomas Friedman*) local, left-leaning un-elected bureaucrats in Houston are trying to take away the very transit that they are suggesting they rely upon. And the supposed "watchdog" media, is cheering them on every step of the way.

The late Marvin Zindler was right: It's HELL to be poor (although he knew very little about that)








*Yes, that's the same Thomas Friedman who chides others for not being 'green' enough while he himself lives in an 11,000 sq ft mansion. Green indeed.