I thought the PRC was trying to get fellow Comrades out of their fossil fueled vehicles and into electric vehicles? Why bother pushing what people are barely using
Car-dependent California seeks to follow New York’s lead and save public transit
Sadaf Zahoor has bucked California’s car culture by never owning one, yet she and other residents who rely on public transit worry its bleak financial outlook could soon leave them standing at empty train stations and bus stops.
The agencies running the public transit systems, particularly in San Francisco and Oakland, where Zahoor lives, have been living off billions of dollars in federal aid that will soon expire.
Ridership plummeted by as much as 94% during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving a gaping budget deficit. Fare box revenues have rebounded a bit, but with more people working from home, some systems haven’t returned to even half their previous levels.
Hmm, the Government locked everyone down, made them stay home, and is shocked that ridership nosedived? And then you have the homeless, crazies, druggies, filth, and criminals on public transit with the cities doing little.
The transit agencies have asked Democrats who control California’s government to rescue them, much like Democrats in New York recently did with a $227 billion spending plan. The request is proving to be a much tougher sell in the nation’s most populous state, where majestic mountain highways and seas of suburban single-family homes have made it far more automobile-reliant than much of the Northeast.
Pumping money into it won’t help when people are avoiding it, because it is often inconvenient and dangerous.
The California Transit Association says transit agencies will have a collective shortfall of about $6 billion over the next five years. The state, which relies heavily on taxes paid by wealthy people, is projected to have a $31.5 billion budget deficit this year amid a struggling stock market and layoffs in the tech industry.
Hmm, so that taxing the rich plan isn’t working? Who woulda thunk it? How many rich folks have abandoned the PRC?
The pandemic was particularly damaging to Bay Area Rapid Transit because as much as 70% of its revenue came from fares — far higher than most other transit systems, said Janice Li, president of the transit system’s board of directors. Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest city, relies less on public transit than San Francisco, although voters have expressed support for it in recent years.
Perhaps they should have thought about this before the prolonged lockdowns. You gotta hate it when Democrat policies screw Democrat voting citizens. Speaking of that
Oregon to crack down on illegal pot growers by holding landowners responsible
Oregon has long been known as a mecca for high-quality marijuana, but that reputation has come with a downside: illegal growers who offer huge amounts of cash to lease or buy land and then leave behind pollution, garbage and a drained water table.
Now, a bill passed by the Oregon Legislature seeks to tackle that by making the landowners themselves responsible for the aftermath. The bill also prohibits the use of rivers or groundwater at the illegal site, as well as criminalizes seizing the identity papers of migrant workers who tend the plants or threatening to report them for deportation.
Under the bill, local governments are authorized to file a claim of lien against property used for illicit marijuana, if the owner doesn’t pay for the cleanup.
A leader of the state’s cannabis and alcohol regulatory agency has said southern Oregon is to marijuana what Bordeaux is to wine. But the state faces challenges on two fronts: The regulated industry has a glut of product that has slashed prices and profit margins, and there has been huge growth in illegal pot farms operating under the guise of growing hemp, which became legal nationally in 2018.
So, let’s see: the state legalized marijuana, and thought they’d make a killing in tax revenue off its sale. The prices were kept artificially high, so, citizens took advantage of the system and started growing their own and selling if for a lot less, leaving a glut of “legal” product they can’t sell because it’s too expensive. And because of government policy, they now have to try and get rid of all the illegal growers (who I bet mostly vote Democrat). But, come on, despite the whole war on drugs over many decades, how much of a dent did it make? You could still get pot. How did it work out when prohibition was passed?
Read: People’s Republik Of California Sees Public Transit Collapse »
When the temperature soared to 99 degrees Fahrenheit last month, Singapore resident Chee Kuan Chew saw just one option: cancel all plans and stay indoors in air-conditioned comfort.
The idea has been floated for years, and it may seem straightforward enough: if gun owners were required to purchase liability insurance, proponents argue, they would have to follow safe practices to limit their financial and legal risk, thus reducing incidents of gun violence.
The governor of Texas announced the state will install a barrier made of buoys along a section of the Rio Grande where people often wade or swim across the treacherous river from Mexico seeking refuge in the US, as the state committed $5.1bn towards ramping up plans to thwart border crossings.
In a 
