We just returned from a wonderful vacation back east.  Spent 10 days in Washington DC.  Loved it and you can't come away from those memorials and museums without being a proud American.  They are fabulous.

We drove from DC to Kentucky to Michigan, then to Ohio, up into New York and Niagra, then back to DC.  It was so very obvious that all the transit systems back east have left California in the dust.  We took the Metro from Annapolis to DC everyday we were there.  It is cheep, efficient, clean and so very easy.  And the freeways (expressways) are clean and in good condition.  True, you run into repairs frequently, but we were delighted with the turnpikes and state highways.

Forty one years ago, I moved here from Detroit.  I can remember like it was yesterday driving from the airport and being amazed at the clean and well kept freeways.  Boy, this state should be ashamed of what we have settled for in the way of mass transit.  Our freeways are now a mess.  And it only took forty years to get ourselves into the disaster we call our transit system.

Why is that?  With gasoline prices increasing every single year for longer than I want to remember - that means the taxes collected by California have increased.  Why are we building those stupid (not a word I use lightly) carpool lane overpasses everywhere in LA and Orange County?  How many ba-zillion dollars are wasted there instead of a rail system?  Or something - isn't there a great mind somewhere in the office that decides how to spend transportation dollars? 

Someone (me and you) have been asleep at the wheel on this one.