Wes Watson's arguments for public transportation ("Traffic congestion," Letters, March 7) sound like they are from Alice's Wonderland when he states, "Florida's 28 public transportation systems provide Floridians with savings averaging $9,000 per year if transit is used to replace a second car."
Let's see if I can figure out how this would work for me and my 8,000 Land O' Lakes neighbors. First, we sell the second car and net $3,500 on the sale. Add in the annual savings on fuel, $3,000; maintenance, $2,000; and insurance, $500. This brings the total savings up to $9,000.
Then, instead of the 250 or so 100-mile round trips I make to work each year, I take four taxi rides and two train rides each day. The taxi fare is $80, and the train fare is $14, so that's $94 for 250 trips, which equals $23,500.
It seems to me this is a no-win situation. Maybe the problem isn't transportation at all. Maybe it is unbridled and disorganized growth. I can't remember when a road was built that was designed to handle the traffic growth 30 years ahead or when a subdivision was told to locate near public transportation or a factory had to locate near a populated area. This kind of thing just doesn't happen here.
For better or worse, growth planning always takes a back seat to commercial interests.
RUSSELL J. WALTROUS
Land O' Lakes
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