Passing off to other polluting nations
The Feb. 16 Business section story “Demand fuels coal export project: Asian market boosts momentum for Longview terminal,” confuses me. At a time when coal use is being curtailed at home, we’re sending the stuff to Asia so they can do the polluting and we can pat ourselves on the back for keeping our air clean. Let’s change our state’s motto to “Washington, the Ever Green State.” It seems big bucks win again.
Ken Serviss
Vancouver
Stop the bridge boondoggle
John Laird, in his Feb. 20 column, “Local ankle-biters are filing their fangs,” thinks we need a new bridge costing $3.7 billion, in part because the “experts” say that we do, and of course, they are “smarter than you or I.” Well, I don’t buy it, and The Columbian readers should not either.
One big cost component of the new bridge is light rail to downtown Vancouver, which is not where most Clark County residents live. Not only is light rail an inefficient and inflexible way to move people, it will need to be heavily subsidized by us taxpayers for years to come. Doesn’t matter, says Laird, because it will be a legacy for our “grandchildren’s grandchildren,” who he thinks will want to ride light-rail trains into Portland in the year 2111. How can anyone presume to know how people will commute to work 100 years from now, or even where the jobs and the workers will be located? Think how much things have changed in the past 100 years! Instead, the legacy I want to leave to my grandkids’ grandkids is no debt — no national debt, no state debt, and no local debt.
Stopping this boondoggle of a bridge is a step in the right direction.
John Bala
Vancouver
Pick a bridge design and get ’er done
I keep reading that there are multiple choices for the new bridge. This looks better than that. Looks are not what we need. Functionality is what we need. Pick a bridge that is functional and start building. I personally do not care what it looks like. As long as I can get from Vancouver to Portland and back, I’m happy. So let’s get it done.