...and I know where hamburger comes from. It grows in the meadow abutting my back yard.

My kids would also ride the bus if there were one, which would mean that they could get to the playground and the college workshops and their music lessons and the pool and the library and the museum and the cheap afternoon movies during the summer without me having to drive home to get them, or them walking into town for two hours on a two-lane state route with no shoulders and farm trucks that take their half of the road out of the middle. What usually happens is that I get them up early and take them to work with me for a while, or I run home at lunch. Most of the kids in the neighborhood who aren't in daycare don't have that option. Some who are in daycare don't have that option either.

What bothers me most about this discussion is the idea that, because so many people have cars, mass transit is unnecessary or a waste of our taxpayer dollars. This is so untrue! There are many people who are either financially unable to afford cars or are too old or too young or too irresponsible (I speak of repeat DUI offenders who still are expected to work) to drive who could benefit from buses and trains. It wouldn't kill some of the rest of us to learn to use the bus. I can't use one because I don't even have that option, even living half a mile from the aforementioned state route. There is no mass transit because the visible people own cars. The rest walk, bum rides, or stay home. And there is always the ambulance in an emergency.

I don't live in Montana, so I can't speak to the situation there vis-a-vis mass transit. I visited there once, though, and I was impressed by all the little white crosses that decorated the roadsides to indicate the lives lost in traffic accidents that didn't involve buses. But they weren't my children, so it doesn't really matter.

Regards--
Mary Anne