Skip to Content
Streetsblog Los Angeles home
Log In
Transit Advocacy

Feds Cut Light Rail Language from STC Report

11:44 AM PST on January 25, 2008

Sometimes, you wonder why people even bother to volunteer for the government.

Let's take the case of transit advocate, and avowed conservative, Paul Weyrich. The founder of such bastions of the Conservative movement in America as the Heritage Foundation and Free Congress Foundation, Weyrich agrees to serve on a Surface Transportation Committee to write a report on the state of American transportation and transportation funding.

So, Weyrich and the rest of the committee work on the report, and it is released to great media coverage and the approval of many transportation experts.

Then what happens?

1) The Secretary of Transportation (and STC Committee Chair) Mary Peters publicly buries the reports main finding, that America needs to raise its gas tax.

2) People notice that the section dedicated to light rail (written by Weyrich and approved by a 9-3 vote of the committee) was magically excluded from the report.

Weyrich was not amused, “It is disappointing that after the paragraphs indicated were passed by a nine to three vote that someone without ever asking me would see to it to do away with these important policy considerations. It is the kind of gutter politics which make people hate their government, and Washington in general.”

You can find the text of what was excluded in the comments section below.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog Los Angeles

Guest Opinion: Metro Should Treat Walk and Bike Projects with the Respect They Deserve

Prioritizing true first mile/last mile infrastructure isn’t somehow optional; it’s how your customers get to and from the transit stations.

September 21, 2023

Eyes on the Street: Slow Streets in South Pasadena

The city has a sampler platter of quick-build temporary traffic calming installations to experience for the rest of the year

September 20, 2023

Metro Board Looks to Approve $65 Million for 91 Freeway Widening Projects

Metro staff are recommending the board approve funds to support two 91 Freeway expansion projects located in pollution-burdened communities in Southeast L.A. County - in the cities of Long Beach, Artesia, and Cerritos

September 19, 2023
See all posts