Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 1, 1994 TAG: 9405020116
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
When Disney World's monorail first went into service, it was predicted that every major urban area in the country would be served by a similar system within 25 years - a logical assumption, given the simplicity of Disney's alternative to gridlock. It built electric trains with rubber wheels that run on a single, elevated concrete rail. Maintenance expenses have been minimal, and the passenger-safety record is incomparable. Monorails can be installed above existing rights-of-way in urban and suburban areas where real-estate values drive the cost of corridor acquisition and expansion sky high. Tracks could fit neatly on median strips of divided highways.
Several generations of elementary-school students have grown up envisioning a future urban landscape graced with shiny trains speeding silently overhead. The closest we've come to realizing their dream is that $200 toilet seat of transportation systems, Washington's Metrorail. The irrelevance of the Interstate 73 routing dispute should bring Roanokers and Virginia's transportation planners home to the reality that trains can be more than historic exhibits and futuristic fantasies in theme parks.
STEVE COCHRAN WILLIS
Plan means a lot to affected citizens
RESPONDING to growing concern about the Virginia Department of Transportation Board's March 17 decision to route Interstate 73 through Roanoke via Bent Mountain, VDOT spokesperson Laura Bullock and others insist the proposed route means ``little'' at this point.
Staff writer Greg Edwards' April 3 news article (``I-73 sells a dream, of a sort'') seems to buy this malarky. He describes those opposing it as ``prematurely frantic.'' Viewed lightheartedly, his description of ``deep-rooted fears of men in orange trucks wanting to pave over your backyard'' was pretty funny. But to those concerned, it connotes paranoia. Baseless fear.
Edwards says ``there's no reason not to believe ... some faceless planners with the state Department of Transportation in Richmond'' trying to tell the public that very detailed topographical maps of the proposed route over Bent Mountain ``mean little'' at this point. If it means so little and all VDOT meant to do was to see if they could get an interstate through the Roanoke area via U.S. 460/U.S. 220, why didn't they just follow U.S. 460/220, i.e., U.S. 220/581/81/460? U.S. 460 and U.S. 220 already are slated for upgrading and expansion as part of the National Highway System, approved by the federal government in 1993. But VDOT proposes to build a new interstate at 2,600 feet to 2,900 feet elevation across Bent Mountain. Why?
Consider: A multibillion-dollar decision on an interstate reached in a matter of 21/2 months. No environmental-impact study; no public input from residents of areas the road will traverse. At least one VDOT engineer has begun evaluating the proposed route through Roanoke County, but the line, as drawn through the county, means nothing? And that while we'll eventually have money for a major highway, we don't now have it for good maps or studies?
What those ``faceless planners'' haven't considered is that their present proposal will destroy a community.
ROBERTA A. BONDURANT ROANOKE
Caning may be needed in the U.S.
WHEN I was in elementary school, teachers taught us that if you commit a crime (felony) and are convicted, you will be punished. Part of that punishment will be termination of certain citizenship rights.
As I look at the newspaper and TV news, I wonder what happened to this country's true judicial system.
The Singapore caning story (April 6 Cal Thomas column, ``When crime draws real punishment'') offers an all-too-true look at the United States. We're giving a few the total fruits of our hard-won freedoms.
Some driving under the influence go to jail, while others are told the system's failed them. Is the law not clear in its wording?
Attorneys, who commit willful illegal acts, practice law again. If they turn in their license before going to court and plea bargain a sentence, they're eligible to apply for their license as soon as the public controversy has time to settle. The convicted can have their license reinstated with no restrictions.
I'm tired of murderers and drug pushers being coddled by a system put in place to protect and defend the people. The system has become a tool to suppress the honest and enrich the good-old-boy club, the court-appointed attorneys for whom we pay. Stop coddling those in society who haven't and won't make contributions. We need to pay attention to Singapore's laws and how and why they work.
If the laws ``if you steal, we cut off your hand; if you kill or commit any other violent act, we cut off your head'' were put into effect, they'd eliminate the need for more prisons. We might even be able to sell some.
CHARLES P. HENRITZE SR. ROANOKE
Socialized medicine is in the making
PRESIDENT Clinton has decided to launch one of the most expensive, demanding and compulsory health-care reform bills ever. The bill, representing one-seventh of the economy and a $900 billion-a-year industry, is being instituted by Ms. Clinton, who wasn't elected to any office and who has no prior health-care knowledge. She has decided she'll implement the plan, which has the makings of socialized medicine.
The plan will have some 59 regional health alliances employing 50,000 government advisors at a yearly cost to taxpayers of almost $4 billion. It will have some 1,342 pages of rules and regulations, which are nearly impossible to understand. It will also involve 818 new mandates, strictly monitored.
Employers will be forced to carry the plan and will pay anywhere from 3.5 percent to 7.9 percent in additional payroll taxes, causing added unemployment. Many doctors will be forced out of practice due to restrictive regulations; others probably will be available only to the wealthy. Patients will suffer from lack of treatment, and those treated outside the alliances can be fined or jailed. Most past government bureaucracies have been too expensive and riddled with inefficiency and waste.
Rep. L.F. Payne Jr. is a proponent of Clinton's bill. He should be held accountable for favoring it.
OTIS E. CURD MONTVALE
'No parking' signs mean just that
ACCORDING to Betty Jo Anthony, ``no one is above the law'' (March 29 news article by staff writer Ron Brown, ``Law enforcer pays up ruefully without excuses''). Darn right! But the way she's accumulated parking tickets (95 in one year) gives me the impression she is above the law. And "who cares about `No Parking' signs?'' Certainly not the city's chief assistant prosecutor. How embarrassing for the city!
Is it OK to accumulate parking citations as long as you can pay the fine? There are many working people who have as many legitimate reasons as she has for parking in the no-parking zones. But because they respect the law and don't want to spend their hard-earned income paying fines, they plan ahead and pay to park in designated areas. What she is doing is showing outright disregard and disrespect for the reason those signs are there in the first place.
Roanoke's law enforcers need to decide that enough is enough, and give stiffer penalties after a person receives so many parking tickets in a month. This applies to all citizens, whether one is the mayor, chief assistant prosecutor or Joe Bloke on the street. Either that or remove those ``no parking'' signs.
FLORA T. CANTOR ROANOKE
When babies land in dumpsters
AS A CHRISTIAN and a mother, I'm angry and confused regarding the young Norfolk State University college student who, after delivering her baby girl, disposed of the newborn in a trash dumpster. The only difference between what she did and a legal abortion is that she didn't pay to have the murder performed. No abortion doctor reaped the funds.
I don't condone what she did, but we cannot continue justifying murder under the title of abortion and condemn the same act because it wasn't performed in a clinic. If this young girl had chosen to abort her child, it would have been considered legal. We've become so desensitized about human life that we've made laws to excuse this act of killing.
In the practice of abortion, the baby is not removed alive. And in this girl's particular situation, the baby was alive. Abortion's just a medical term for destroying human life. In both situations, the babies would have ended up in the same place - dumpsters.
Murder is murder, and abortion is just that. Government laws cannot change the truth.
MICHELLE R. BUSH WARM SPRINGS
by CNB