Later news

2009-02-19T05:26:00.000-08:00

It seems the local BIG NO straight-jacketed Republicans have seen a chance to let Washington do their thinking for them, leaving funding for a Gtown-SCTx bus line open for a federal grant. I hate to be partisan in time of emergency, but I see that I am in the minority anyway. I AM a registered Republican, due mostly to what the Nicaraguans call "choña," not really laziness, but having full expectation that I will eventually get around to doing something, such as reregistering or dying, whichever comes first.

My own viewpoint is that bus service is STRICTLY a local problem. The local merchants should be on my side economically (not politically, no one else need endure that!) . The less people spend on keeping a car running the more they can spend on fattening foods and the clothes to cover their expanding figures.

Fellow SCTxans enjoy the thought of living in a golf-cart community. My viewpoint is that the wee machines are ridiculous, but do make lots of sense for our situation of providing minimal transport. With the Social Center serving as boarding point for the Gtown bus, you can get twice as many golf carts onto the parking lot as you can automobiles. If we had reasonable bus service assured, I think I would trade in my 1996 Camry on a golf cart, preferably not of the same vintage.

Our town council is eager to invite new bidnesses to our town by offering tax moratoriums. Why not think beyond the ends of their noses and consider that each new industry means more cars circulating, more contamination of the environment, the more "city-like" we become. A suitable bus service (especially that splendid new bus that runs on butane with reduced stinkum) would keep a lot of cars off the road, especially if the fares were kept reasonable.

By reasonable, I do not mean "give-away" as Austin has tried to do with their CART. We are not spread over the countryside as Texas cities like to be... yet. But City Planners, if they are doing their job right, must consider highway communications as a principal item in allocating how our territory is to be filled. The times they are achanging: land transport, which has always been cheap in the USA, must adapt to other fuels and other living standards. Driving humongous SUVs with only one person aboard is an obscenity, a lesion on the body politic. That idea during the last real war of sharing rides has disappeared from our minds.

As the richest country in the world, we are also the most wasteful. The American Way is to consume, and if you don't waste, you can't consume as much, and the economy suffers. When the economy contracts, we look for fall-guys to blame, when each and every one of us has contributed in his own particular way. As retirees, my end of society probably places personal comfort before anything else. Generally, I don't think this is much of an imposition. It's the second aspect that makes me persnickety: display. Spending money, not to keep UP with the Joneses, but trying to keep AHEAD of the Joneses becomes a full time job. I could cite a dozen instances, but then the people I would expose would kill me, and that, too, would be wasteful. Of me.

How do we get our voices heard? E-mail me at birchall.jack@yahoo.com and give me YOUR thoughts.

It has been a week or so

2009-02-18T07:39:00.000-08:00

since Gerogetown gave us a taste of the pleasures of bus riding. I haven't seen it, but I understand that the Williamson County Sun was kind enough to print my letter to the editor, which not all of us subscribe to (though we should...). I reproduce it here for your
amusement, information, consideration, and, hopefully, YOUR comment.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
While waiting for the Gtown-SCTx bus to complete its circuit of the town center and take me home from HEB on Feb 4, I watched as dozens of cars passed me, rarely with more than one person aboard. I pondered my own state, still welcome to risk life and limb as a driver on Texas highways, but not ignoring the fact that every day that passes finds me older. I admit that I am not as sharp as I was ten years ago, but my driving responses haven't suffered much with the 80+ years.

But I know that the time will arrive, sooner or later, when I surrender my driving privileges and must find alternative ways to get to market, or prowl the toney shops of Wolf Ranch. The City of Georgetown, for past few months, has provided what I am certain would be an ideal solution for really old people who must tend to their daily sustenance.

On the bus ride to HEB, I sat across the aisle from two of my neighbors who have surrendered their driver's licenses. Both of them regretted the deadline set by our City Council for the the end of the bus service to our community. With them I discussed what a fine solution the bus had been. We can putz around our campus on golf carts, but hate the prospect of competing with our juniors for that wee slice of the highway that we pay taxes for. An extra quarter cent sales tax would probably be enough to keep all of Georgetown communicating via bus.

And then, as SCTx residents, there is that thousand bucks a household we "contributed" as our annual stipend to sustain the Community Association. The bus service to town is reasonably a part of our Community services. Another consideration is the 50¢ fare for old people. I doubt that there are many people in SCTx who would not gladly pay the full $1.00 fare to have the service. I suspect that Those In Charge have all the rider statistics for this test period and would be happy to bring their Dog and Pony show to the SCTx ballroom for a public discussion. Our SCTx population may be getting older by the minute, but we still have plenty of very bright people who could contribute ideas to the matter at hand.

Economically, the IRS allows 55¢ a mile for travel in a car. We all know that after adding insurance costs to depreciation of the car and the expenses of maintaining a machine, especially in a goosy-priced gasoline market, we'd be lucky to get by for that price. But people come to SCTx not to economize, but to "live the good life." For me, that means mostly convenience, but at a reasonable cost. Keeping great neighbors demands, mostly, not trying to take advantage of their kindliness for day-to-day living problems. For an aging population, transportation becomes an almost daily concern.

Ecologically, which really hasn't much influence on most of us, each of us driving a two-ton vehicle to buy thirty pounds of groceries is a great leap beyond ridiculous. Not that we should worry. The Generation Y people are the ones that are going to have to live with our thoughtlessness. If it was good enough for gran'pappy, it is no longer good enough for us. We all bought houses with heat-absorbing roofing, which in itself is pretty stupid. Then we put in a tenth of an acre of grass which requires intensive watering throughout the year in these, our pre-dust-bowl years. Ignore the chemicals we apply to keep down the bugs and contaminate the aquifer: Generation Y are welcome to develop gills to permit them to survive.

There are a lot of other factors, many of them personal, most of them public, that should get our attention. Selfishness is not a lost art: we all have things that we deem essential to our comfort in life. That they may conflict with our neighbors' interest rarely causes a brou-ha-ha. Generally, SCTx people are reasonable and rational. Many of us do extend ourselves to charitable acts, either organized or personal. Our generation is living so much longer than we ever expected, and staying healthier far beyond earlier generations. A consideration of the future for our general well-being demands that we make Georgetown do its civic duty and provide bus service for us, the means of paying and other details to be worked out from both sides.
Jack Birchall
102 Anemone Way
birchall.jack@yahoo.com

SCTx.BUS.etc

Later news

It has been a week or so