And outside experts said that TriMet's problems are much more complex than its union contract.(In other words, Mcfarlane and his bought and paid for cronies are lying)
Don Pickrell, chief economist at the U.S. Department of Transportation's Volpe Center in Cambridge, Mass., said TriMet is typical of many of the country's transit agencies.
He said that like others, it is stuck with seemingly intractable budget problems, even as ridership grows and it takes federal grant money for new rail lines it doesn't have the money to operate.
Trying to get the ignorant masses to understand this is a task unlikely to succeed in a country that is filled with a population that is against itself.
In Greece, Spain, Italy the people rose up together and to this day they fight the money masters.
In the good ole US of A the population tears itself down.
No police needed here.
Americans will get what they deserve. They think it will end with the destruction of the unions.
Boy are they in for a big surprise.
2 comments:
Am I the only one tired of having to listen to Trimet blame everybody else for every single problem that they have.
The management at Trimet are the poster child for buck passing squealing pigs.
They take no responsibility for anything negative that happens there.
It's truly pathetic to watch this bunch of people run the billion dollar transit agency into the ground and be helpless to stop them.
(My comment from PT)
This is an act of propaganda, with TriMet trying to terrify its riders into submission and trying to force them to fight against the union, causing deliberate tension between drivers and riders. Yet, they've shot themselves in their foot by telling the riders that their only plans to cut things are 'almost every single non frequent bus route in the entire system' and raise fares on everyone to drastic amounts. They are telling the riders that they are expendable. They did not mention considering any other method of cuts other than punishing its riders or its drivers for the sake of the other. After all, higher ups like McFarlane earn more money in five years than most families will see in their entire lives. They don't seem to want to give up anything for themselves, instead stretching the truth or outright lying to pin the blame on the union when the union has already suffered loss in pension and health care which TriMet has conveniently failed to mention. They also refuse to even consider tampering with capital budgets except for not building anything after PMLR, while still going all out on it (a Cadillac rail plan, anyone?)
People are going on and on about how the union has Cadillac benefits (which they don't, anymore) and how this is one of the most Cadillac Transit systems of the nation (which, as any struggling bus rider will tell you they most certainly don't) but no one mentions the actual high class Cadillac stuff- rail projects, rail stations, upper management mammoth salaries, Cadillac bureaucratic jobs for hiring, Hansen's Cadillac pension and Cadillac sized capital project budget of which bus operation is a dime next to a dollar.
It's a sad state we're in when the working class, those who toil and struggle for a paycheck for their families, is labeled as entitled and spoiled and the upper class, who give themselves a game show winning a year, are labeled as the struggling.
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