Friday, March 11, 2011

Writer Criticizes How Tab Tax $ To Be Spent

Bumpy road ahead
Spokesman-Review Letter to the Editor

And they wonder why citizens don’t trust government. The “tab tax” was to improve streets, and now we see how. Ten percent to sidewalks and 90 percent to streets — but how much of that 90 percent is going to “bicycle lanes,” on which no cars can travel.

Also, the funds will probably be used to hire or rehire city workers instead of trained professionals that are employed by paving contractors and are subject to work standards instead of the city standards that consistently have used sub-standard materials and poor workmanship for years with the results of needing to be redone over and over, resulting in job security with benefits and pension that go on forever.

Stop government bloating and hire it out. By using several contractors, multiple projects can be done at the same time and without buying millions of dollars worth of equipment which you don’t know how to operate.

David Darlow
Spokane


Mr. Darlow- the City does contract out all of their rehabilitation and new construction projects. The only road work the City does itself is patching of things like potholes and cuts in the cement for utility installation or repairs. Every other project gets contracted out. Here's a list to the City's project bid web page where you can see what's already been bid on and what's coming up.

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About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.