#1: Why bus workers need better and more health benefits. - especially those mechanics working on the buses. Can you imagine working inside the garages with all those fumes. There are school students all across this country doing projects about the diesel fumes coming from school buses at the corner. Now times that by lots for those who are fixing and working on them all the time. Bad sicknesses?!?
#2: If we are throwing the whole thing bus transit system out with the bathwater than maybe a new system could be developed using electric or natural gas buses so we would actually cut down on a variety of health hazards that occur in the transportation industry. In Chattanooga, Tennessee which in 1970 was named the worst polluted city in America answered their bus pollution problem by not only getting a new fleet of electric buses but also building a transportation center that taught people how to build and maintain them and then they set up a manufacturing business and now one can get buses through them. There are several other companies also which have used creating these new, clean bus systems by creating jobs in their community. In California (Santa Monica specifically) there are solar powered buses. Renewable energy for buses - What a novel idea?!?
Another far out option to solve this crisis would be to move our country to universal or single payer health care - I don't care which one - just that we need to revamp this whole health care system. Nobody can afford any of it anymore - neither the employer or the employees or all of those who aren't working for some reason or another. Our health care system is a mess.
I know these don't solve the immediate situation but it certainly is food for thought when we look at all our transportation options for the future. Oops, I forgot we are dealing with the Met Council who believes in paving over paradise for the almighty automobile, poor people and the planet be damned.
Annie Young East Phillips
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