Measure M’s Impact on County’s Traffic, Taxes
Of the $3.1 billion to be raised over the next 20 years if Proposition M should pass, the smallest portion is allotted to the most critical transportation problem Orange County has: the lack of public transportation. What there is snails around the outskirts of housing developments, is confined to major roadways and offers no through-service to anywhere.
If there is to be a pie to divide after November, the big bucks should be spent on alternative means of transportation, not freeways. We have driven workers of this county farther and farther into the hinterlands of Riverside and San Bernardino counties in search of affordable housing. How do they get to jobs? They commute in their cars.
Orange County must address the immediate problems of housing. There should be a moratorium on all housing construction, except for low-cost housing for middle- and low-income people, to get them into Orange County closer to their jobs. The moratorium should exist until rapid, nonpolluting traffic solutions have been met.
It’s No on M. Time for us now to think about what the year 2010 will bring us in our “quality of life” and it sure isn’t more smog from more cars on more freeways.
MARY LOU RIPLEY
Laguna Beach
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