200 words: transportation and freeways

      Critics of a slow, inefficient, disorganized, crime ridden public transit system are right!  By choice most of us don’t use public transit now, or plan to.  But we regularly fund it for others, anticipating the future.
          
     Californians venerate the personal car, and that won’t change for another generation or two.   It’s often a person’s most expensive purchase after a house, if ya can afford that!  We love our cars because they reveal ourselves, move us with our desires, and allow us to express our individuality.

    I drive the STAR TRIKE, a hand built starship replica.  In my job as an entertainer there’s always too much to carry, so I can’t use the bus.   If I–or a taxpayer–had a permanent job and a stable living area (like a regular restaurant gig), then mass transportation might be practical.  So might living and working communities.   Most people use public transportation as a last resort, and prefer their costly individual vehicles: that’s still legal here. 

    Citizens are irregular in their driving times, destinations, and habits.  Small businesses, busy managers, deliverers, and service workers all need individual vehicles, which the boss may choose to electrify or run on fry oil.  But until the quality of life changes and electric vehicles take over, individuals will always vote for  self transportation over mass transit.    I vote for better roads, more lanes, more exciting destinations, and better repair on those roads we have.   They’ll have to last long enough to pass on to our grandchildren.