Regional Transit Needs
* Re “Transit Needs: Unmet,” Ventura County editorial, Feb. 20.
I think there is a world of legitimate, reasonable unmet transit needs out there, just waiting to be met, and would urge the Ventura County Transportation Commission to allocate, from this year onward, every single penny of its available transit money to transit.
None of the money earmarked for transit should continue to be diverted to roads. This is not because roads are unnecessary, but because there is more to society’s needs for mobility than just roads and cars.
As long as there are significant numbers of senior citizens, the handicapped, the poor, students, children--indeed, anyone who doesn’t have access to a car, for whatever reason--who cannot get from one well-populated place to the next within a reasonable time, with reasonable reliability and safety, then there are unmet transit needs that should be met.
If the criteria for “unmet transit need” or “reasonable to meet” are too narrow to accommodate the vast majority of requests I heard at this year’s unmet-needs hearing, the definitions or the process itself are unreasonable and should be changed.
PATRICIA FEINER ARKIN
Somis
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