Let’s create a viable transportation network

Published 3:39 pm Wednesday, June 4, 2014

I noticed an article about Gov. Jay Inslee and the need for a transportation package. This is not a partisan issue.

However, Jay Inslee has made it a partisan issue, adding 20 to 40 cents a gallon to the price of gasoline by adding ethanol, when the people of this state object to even a 10-cents-a-gallon gas tax for transportation.

These are issues the public is rightly concerned about because it affects their personal bottom line.

I am willing to talk about transportation, if all the reasons for the problem are presented to the public: the requirement to pay inflated wages for construction projects; shoddy design and construction of bridges; and unreasonable UN resolutions concerning the environment.

Yes, we need a viable transportation network. Why could President Eisenhower construct the interstate highway system in a short period of time in the 1950s, yet it takes more than a year to construct a bypass (Route 18 and I-5) in the 2010s?

There has to be a better way than, pardon the analogy, the road we are on.

– Marie-Anne Harkness