What was the number? Four bankrupt airlines in the last week or two? When are we going to ask the question: “Is air travel only feasible — for airlines and customers — for those who must get someplace quickly or have the money to afford it?”

Our skies seem to be over-full. Our airports can’t handle the current amount of traffic. Our air traffic control system is antiquated because, apparently, it would cost so much to improve it. The various subsidies and tax breaks the government provides for the system helps makes the cost effectiveness of air travel highly questionable. The cost of equipment and maintenance is extremely high. Finally, the system is so complex and affected greatly by the weather that the slightest hiccup throws the entire system into chaos.

Our road system is crumbling and inadequate in many crucial places — I-70, for example. Road travel is inefficient insofar as it relies on petroleum, which is a strategic danger to the country. Our rail system is inadequate and antiquated because changes in the laws made trucking on highways quicker and more economical, to the detriment of our highways.

In other words, we have a helter-skelter system based on antiquated needs and economics. Some people gasp in horror when the words “we need a transportation overhaul master plan” are uttered. In fact, there are plenty of places where private enterprise could be the best solution in a rational plan, possibly all of it, save the road system. The transportation network and methods used have just as an important strategic value to our everyday life in this country as any other strategic concern involving defense, our food supply, our air quality, protection of our environment and–yes–global warming. Easy and economical transportation is the lifeblood of our economy.

The financing of virtually all of our transportation means and network is riddled with government involvement, subsidies and tax breaks that make it near impossible to determine the true economic feasibility of any of it. It’s time to sort through all of it and devise an overhaul that will allow people to get where they are going in a reasonable time economically, and devise a better way to transport commercial needs. More rail is inevitable, and it doesn’t have to be slow.

I can hear the cries now, “making the trains run on time is the characteristic of a fascist country”!

JOHN BORGEN
Grand Junction

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 10:18 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.