it may be Public, but it's NOT Transportation!

***warning to norman - "Cranky Old Man" post***

I was in a hurry to get to work this morning, you know, the Day Job where I work like crazy and then the Government helps itself to half of the money I earned, to be spent on things like road construction and public transportation?

The entry ramp to the freeway was blocked off, supposedly to be repaired. But there was no repair work apparent, not even Government people standing in day-glo vests around a truck talking on their cell phones. So I couldn't get on the freeway. Hope that some day they may get a hankerin' to do a piece of work there...

And I took the side streets 10 miles to work, mainly Lincoln Avenue. And half of that time was spent behind a City Bus. Public Transportation. It lumbered along at about 10 miles per hour - at first I thought I was in a parade. But then it kind of pulled off to the right - not enough that I could get past it. I waited patiently for the wheels of the bus to go round and round again...

A picture of a sneering attorney looked back on me through clouds of black smoke. So conscientious of the carbon footprints of others, the government spends our money freely on studies to desecrate lakeshores and parklands with noisy windmills, yet the government can't keep the buses from exhaling thick clouds of black smoke at each corner, like oversized bloated insolent cigars blown in our face.

I'll tell you all what it's like on the inside of those buses another time, but for now i'll leave you with the oxymoron. Public bus systems are not really public transportation -- that would involve people leaving somewhere and arriving somewhere else. Buses are the OPPOSITE of transportation.