To the editor:

People should understand the financial consequences of the votes on the T. The T costs Lawrence taxpayers just 1.1 percent of the current city budget, and 55.5 percent of the T’s funding last year came from federal and state sources. Voting “no” would require us to sell the buses and repay some of the federal funding with which we bought them. Forced sale of capital assets is bad business, especially when we don’t get all the proceeds.

Another consequence of a forced shutdown is simply inhumane. We would have to fund paratransit for the disabled on our own, since the federal government won’t assist with that unless we have transit that’s available to everybody. It just doesn’t make sense to start from scratch for a necessary and compassionate service, especially if we’ve first thrown away hard-won advantages. And if we wanted federal funding for the whole program again, we’d have to start over at the back of a long line.

We’re given the unfortunate choice between (on one side) approving a small tax, and (on the other hand) throwing away assets, without much gain, that would be hard to recover. The tax is regressive but not burdensome; it costs only 25 cents for each $100 of goods we buy. Two proverbs apply to a “no” vote: “cutting off your nose to spite your face” and “penny wise, pound foolish.” We need to save the T and fund improvements by voting “yes” on Questions 2 and 3, and then insist on those improvements.

William O. Scott,
Lawrence