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The Charles Street Trolley project should be put on hold immediately
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Last year I wrote a piece about the proposed Charles Street Trolley being a bad idea. I still feel that way. Last week I was reading this trolley related article in the Urbanite and I discovered this anti-trolley site.
TrolleyTrouble.org provides some great information including letters between Mayor Dixon and the director of the Charles Street Development Corporation David Funk. Mayor Dixon says that she will not create a new special taxing district to fund this $300million project. The Mayor suggests that the money should come out of the existing special benefits districts along the proposed route. The special benefits districts in question are all part of the lovely Baltimore shadow government. Elected officials are not in charge of these districts and citizens have little say over how the money funding these districts is spent. The districts are funded by the tax payers though! The money currently used to fund these districts could easily be used to fund a trolley that the citizens who fund the districts do not want or need.
The Charm City Circulator will soon open. It will provide free shuttle trips on three different routes in downtown Baltimore. These routes run close to the proposed trolley. Before we spend $300million on a Trolley can we at least see how well the free shuttle does and if it totally renders the trolley useless? Why are we in such a rush to spend $300million in the middle of a recession where we are suffering through an almost 10% unemployment rate?
I feel the trolley is the ultimate example of government financial waste that is intended to benefit various developers and their associates who contribute to political campaigns. It is a way of allowing unelected bodies to redistribute tax payers' money into the pockets of developers all in the name of "public transportation" and "public good".
On Wednesday from 5PM to 6PM the Marc Steiner show on WEAA 88.9FM will be about the proposed Charles Street Trolley. It should be a good show.
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