When this initiative was made, did anyone think about the transit budget? I'm up here in Bellingham going to Western and it seems like at least half of the students use busses to get to and from school. Now a good portion of the routes will be cut and it is because of I-695. Obviously this will make it hard to get to school, and work, and home, and at a convenient time. Paying $30 for my car is going to be nice but I still won't be able to get to school. I have one more question, is this a rich persons law? My car is an '88 and I'll save $70 but I can't buy a new car with that, nor can anyone I know. If $800 tabs are going to break you, maybe you should hold off on the Mercedes.

-- Jeremy Conley (permdog@hotmail.com), November 22, 1999

Answers

If paying the full price to ride the bus is going to break you and your friends maybe you should hold off on that education.

Ed - you can always take courses from Devry

-- Ed (ed_bridges@yahoo.com), November 22, 1999.

Uh oh...I'd watch it with that kind of talk here, Jeremy. The folks in this forum are not exactly what you would call "college friendly". I can think of three reasons for this:

1.) Some have had personal problems with higher edumacation (call this one "penis envy") See: Maddjak, Ed and Zowie.

2.) Others went to college, but mommy and daddy funded it all, and were thus leeches on the folks instead of "the poor taxpayers". Result? an absolute ignorance about fighting for student loans, grants and scholarships....These days, their post graduate work is comprised of bragging about their "real world jobs" and how it sucks that they should have subsidize all these student cockroaches. (If only their parents would have felt the same way about subsidizing a student cockroach) See: Westin, Craig and Brad (but these are really iffy)

3.) Still others represent the 1950's Dinosaurs: Folks that love to see college students as rabble-rowsers. While there are a few of these (rabble-rowsers) on every campass, these days, they really are the exception rather than the rule. (Anyone else notice the conservative swing @ the UW?) As with all dinos, its best to just let'em die off. See: Maddjak (from his Photo, anyway) and Monte

Take action Jeremy! Write Gary Locke, The Bellingham City council, and others...Let them know about your concerns with Urban transit cuts. Remember, like them or not, they are your elected representatives... The Eyeman collective is not.

-- KLA (crass@hotmail.com), November 22, 1999.

(See what I mean, Jeremy?)

Hey Ed, hows that subsudized cockroach job treating you?

-- KLA (crass@hotmail.com), November 22, 1999.

Hey Jeremy, how about living on campus or within walking distance? Or, if you have a car, why is it you can't get to classes? Perhaps too many beers or bong hits the night before?

Finally, as I understand it, the cuts being suggested are just that, SUGGESTED. If I'm wrong about this, I apologize. However, one should NEVER rely exclusively on one form or another of transportation. Cars break down, drivers go on strike, bus routes are rescheduled and even bicyles get flat tires or are stolen.

By the way, the routes were/are not cut "due to I-695". The routes were cut because various governmental entities have been living off an excess of taxpayer money. If the local pols decide to cut transit, talk to them... but don't blame I-695. There was nothing in the initiative that spoke to how and where cuts would be made.

Sorry, no sympathy here..

-- just a guy (torijosh@yahoo.com), November 22, 1999.

Quit whining Jeremy and get a life. NOBODY OWES YOU A THING.

Many people in this country have earned their spot in life WITHOUT A GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY.

If you are having trouble getting to school maybe you should quit and get a job......Oh yeah I forgot there are no jobs in Bellingham..

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), November 22, 1999.

Lets see Madjakk is a #1 or #2...check! Special Ed is a #1...check!

Wow, I'm 2 for 2 so far!

-- KLA (crass@hotmail.com), November 22, 1999.

"Some have had personal problems with higher edumacation (call this one "penis envy") See: Maddjak, Ed and Zowie. " Actually, Zowie has three degrees. He worked his way through the U-DUB. Wife (of thirty+ years now) worked while he got his NEXT degree (Private School back East). The military paid for his third degree. He has thus far put one kid through two degrees (U-DUB), has one at Bellingham, and has one in high school/Running Start. Zowie has NO problems with "edumacation." Zowie has considerable problems with WHINERS. Bellingham has about 50,000 population, no demonstrable rush hour, and relative to the schools I went to, outstanding parking. The $70 you save, to my certain knowledge, will cover your parking expenses. If you have CHOSEN not to live in the dorms then hopefully you CHOSE to live somewhere convenient to commute from. Perhaps you can even car-pool. Given that an eighteen credit load still gives you less than four hours of class per day, I don't know why this would be all that hard.

If you are having difficulty economically, you might consider joining the Army. They are giving bonuses up to $20,000 and up to $50,000 of college assistance after separation. The National Guard and Reserves could also help you pay your way. Of course, that requires some national SERVICE, rather than just whining for your money. Cheers

zowie

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), November 22, 1999.

KLA

Don't know about madjak, but I paid for my college, worked 8 hour days and went to school full time too. So our probly 1 for 1 which in my book makes you a loser.

Ed - degrees in Engineering, Diesel Tech, Criminal Justice

-- Ed (ed_bridges@yahoo.com), November 22, 1999.

kla--"Uh oh...I'd watch it with that kind of talk here, Jeremy. The folks in this forum are not exactly what you would call "college friendly". I can think of three reasons for this: "

Hmmm, from what I can tell, many of the people on this forum (on both sides) are quite collegial.

" 1.) Some have had personal problems with higher edumacation (call this one "penis envy") See: Maddjak, Ed and Zowie"

Unadulterated silliness.

"2.) Others went to college, but mommy and daddy funded it all, and were thus leeches on the folks instead of "the poor taxpayers". Result? an absolute ignorance about fighting for student loans, grants and scholarships....These days, their post graduate work is comprised of bragging about their "real world jobs" and how it sucks that they should have subsidize all these student cockroaches. (If only their parents would have felt the same way about subsidizing a student cockroach) See: Westin, Craig and Brad (but these are really iffy)."

Hmmm, I've never seen Westin, Craig or myself brag about our "real world jobs." Quite frankly, I've no idea what Craig's real world job is. Similarly, I doubt he has any idea what I do.

As far as your assertion about student loans and scholarships go, you can be quite secure in knowing your presumption about me is incorrect.

"3.) Still others represent the 1950's Dinosaurs: Folks that love to see college students as rabble-rowsers. While there are a few of these (rabble-rowsers) on every campass, these days, they really are the exception rather than the rule. (Anyone else notice the conservative swing @ the UW?) As with all dinos, its best to just let'em die off. See: Maddjak (from his Photo, anyway) and Monte."

More inflammatory bigotry. I've never met anyone like you just described. Furthermore, I'd venture a guess you haven't either.

A show of hands. . .does anyone besides me think theman has returned to the forum under a pseudonym for a pseudonym?

Anyhow, it's probably best not to feed the troll.

-- Brad (knotwell@my-deja.com), November 22, 1999.

Can I be a dinosaur? Can I huh Can I? Maddjak gets to be one, I wanna too! Its not fair!

At what point in time did someone jump to the conclusion a cut in service means elimination of service? Are they only cutting routes that college students ride? If so, this is the wrong place to complain.

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), November 22, 1999.

permdog(?) - -

You have the misfortune to be in a transit system that had disastrously high subsidies. Farebox revenues paid for only 6% of operating expenses at Bellingham/Whatcom. I can believe that with loss of MVET, there are going to be a lot of cuts. It's unfortunate it was that highly leveraged to begin with. How far from campus do you live, anyway.

I gotta ask.... why "permdog"?

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), November 22, 1999.

Jeremy: I do not care to pay for your bus ride. Neither do I want to pay for your college education, your food, your house or your car. I was poor in school, but that's the way it is.

-- JR (jrule@yahoo.com), November 22, 1999.

Just wondering how many of you take the bus to work? How many of you live within 4 blocks of work? It's a free choice to live where you want, right? Same with us college students. And most 695 proponents want the choice of buying whatever car they want and pay only $30 for tabs. That surely is a benefit of this initiative. So why can't we have the choice to live where we want, and take what transportation to school that we want. I agree with Jeremy here. If you can't pay the tabs, don't buy the car.

-- cave canine (cavecanine@hotmail.com), November 22, 1999.

Yes, we are free to live wherever we want, but I don't want to subsidize my sister because she got 800 extry square feet on her house by living in silverdale. You're free to live wherever you want, just don't kick my door in, put a gun to my head and scream "gimme the money!!!". It tends to offend the neighbors.

-- Paul Oss (jnaut@earthlink.net), November 22, 1999.

Brad, no I am not a part of this discussion as you guessed above. Although I may hold some of the same oppinions the key word is some, I have not participated in this forum for a while. I am not frustrated with anyone who gripes about their car tabs, they are expensive. I am however frustrated with my neighbor who has two mortgages, one on his home and one on his second home, a 400k blue bird RV. He gets a tax credit as a second home, but only pays 30 dollars in tabs. He adimately opposes this RV to be part of his property tax. You have to admit this is wrong.

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), November 22, 1999.

Just in case no one has been to Bellingham, there is no where there you cannot walk in less than 45 minutes. May be more healthy for you than riding a free bus.

-- Jim Labyak (jimlab@msn.com), November 23, 1999.

theman,

Surprise, surprise. You're right twice in one day. I do admit it's wrong. He shouldn't be paying taxes on either home!

P.S. Be patient KLA I'll get to you soon. However, your socialist comrades dbvz, theman and gene have seniority.

-- Tony (eagleross@pioneernet.net), November 23, 1999.

So when did I signup to give all the party animal pot smoking college students a free bus ride??? Skate board to college punk!

-- eweqrwer sdfsdf (wewewe@dgdfg.com), November 23, 1999.

I bought my car, I paid the sales tax. I maintain it and pay for the gas and oil. I should pay for my transportation and yours? You come nowhere near paying what your true transportation costs are. I don't mind a couple quarters here and there to help out, but golly, not the $320 a year from my $800 MVRT on my BRAND NEW, SHINY RED MERCEDES.

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), November 23, 1999.

Hey, Tony's back!

"KVI would want us to address him as comrade Locke,...Gary might prefer that too...How so you say it in Chinese?" --Paula (eagleross@pioneernet.net) November 01, 1999

How is Paula's "yellow fever" coming along, Tony?

-- Fisticuff (snotbag@tonys.com), November 23, 1999.

Nice try fisticuff (or whatever your name is)

Comrade refers to his socialist tendancies not his Asian heritage, however, I have to admit you have learned well. Whenever you folks don't have ideas you revert to one of your old tricks like claiming racism.

Can you use your intelligence to give me some ideas that don't require government interference? What about privatization of the ferry system or privatization of the bus system as examples?

-- Tony (eagleross@pioneernet.net), November 23, 1999.

I was going to respond to everyone individually, but that would take quite awhile and it wouldn't have been public. I don't if any of you have been to Western but there are 11,000 students, not everyone can live on campus, nor are there enough parking spaces, riding the bus just makes more sense. I'm sure some routes don't earn that much money and they should be cut. To acorn: I can't believe you would insult me, and my parents, by saying I take handouts (I don't have any financial aid by the way) by riding the bus and they didn't raise me right. Why do you think that because you are rich, you have the right to be greedy and not help anyone? I never said I don't think government wastes money. It's also amazing that everyone assumed I'm poor. I'm not, I help people all the time, I give them money because they are in a situation that they can't control. My parents have never given me money for my school. Just so everyone knows, I work, and pay taxes, my money gets wasted too. That is why you shouldn't vote for the people who waste the money.

I'll bet the next action the brilliant Tim E. takes will be to bring about a class action lawsuit to get back the money that was wasted because car tabs should have been $30 all along.

-- Jeremy Conley (permdog@hotmail.com), November 24, 1999.

I just have to add one more thing. I believe it was ed who told me to go join the army. Unfortunately, I don't believe in killing people, or fighting some stupid war because the U.S. government can't get their way.

-- Jeremy Conley (permdog@hotmail.com), November 24, 1999.

Sorry, it was Zowie who told me that.

-- Jeremy Conley (permdog@hotmail.com), November 24, 1999.

I just have to add one more thing. I believe it was permdog who whined that he wouldn't be able to get to school. Unfortunately, I don't believe in transit subsidies, or paying some stupid MVET because some student can't get a ri

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), November 25, 1999.

It will be interesting to see that someday when you need a "ride" because your car doesn't run, you won't be able to get to work at the time needed because the one route that used to do that was cut.

-- Jeremy Conley (permdog@hotmail.com), November 25, 1999.

Jeremy, The majority of the voters overwhelmingly approved this iniatitive. For many of us, I-695 was not about paying cheap tabs. Personally, your assumtion and comments were insulting. I am saving about 90 dollars, which is just not much. I voted for I-695 because I wanted the State to get their act together and stop spending our tax money as if we were all Bill Gates. If riding a bus is so important to you, perhaps your energy is misdirected by posting in this forum and could be used someplace that it would actually make a difference. I would not own a Mercedes. I am not rich, and I am glad I do not need to rely on you to defend my country. I hate to inform you, but, to my knowledge, yes, the majority of voters did think about transit issues when we voted for I-695. Does it bother you to see empty busses driving around? It does me. Since you are intelligent enough to attend Western, I assume you are intelligent enough to find a solution to your transportation dillema.

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), November 25, 1999.

Well, you're right. Posting stuff on here doesn't get anything done. Everyone gets mad and I doubt peoples opinions will change (including mine). I did just think about transit because that's going to be the problem at Western. Politicians probably won't change because of this though. Oh well, everything will work out in the end, it always does.

-- Jeremy Conley (permdog@hotmail.com), November 26, 1999.

Jeremy ,,, I have a suggestion for you and all your friends that were riding the bus to school. Take your Car and Contact those people that were riding the bus and CARPOOL. Post a flyer at the school. "Anyone interested in Carpool" we do this at work. It works just fine. Does Western offer Online courses? Its a possibility? If not ask why not?

-- Ruth Rooslet (Jeepmama42@aol.com), December 05, 1999.