Public transit faces a financial cliff: Support the November ballot measure

NO

Enough is enough . At least 5 petitions going around to raise taxes of all different kind .

Thanks for your letter, San Mateo County Citizens’ Climate Lobby youth group, but how does transferring our hard-earned money to union transportation workers help our global warming footprint? Union transportation workers have been operating at 100% capacity for-ever even though ridership has never reached 100%. Since the beginning of COVID, ridership has been at 50% or less yet public transportation has continued to operate at 100%. If lower emissions were the goal, shouldn’t public transportation have ramped down their capacity and their number of union workers to 60% or less? The fact that they didn’t and don’t want to exposes the fact that this sales tax is nothing but a money grab and has nothing to do with emissions.

I’d recommend everyone not sign the ballot measure because it does nothing to save the planet or reduce emissions. Closing down one-third of stations and stopping rides after 9 p.m. will do much more to save the planet than funding ever-increasing union salaries, pensions, and benefits. BTW, as high schoolers, it’s likely you’re not paying for this increased sales tax. How do your parents feel about it? And for high schoolers or anyone working, there’s no law preventing you from donating to public transportation/unions. But will anyone? I highly doubt it.

Perhaps instead of shilling for public transportation unions, the Climate Lobby, adults or not, should focus on pushing for forest and fire management to decrease the severity of wildfires. Those actions are much more effective at reducing carbon emissions than funding public union workers. And for extra credit, convince as many of the 50000+ climate conference attendees to use Zoom instead of taking 400+ private jets and who knows how many public jets to attend a conference to, of all things, lecture everyone else on carbon emissions while they spew carbon to their hearts’ delights.