Re: “Commuters slog down Interstate 270,” Sept. 17
Frederick County Commissioner Charles Jenkins wishes that transit
advocates had weighed in earlier on I-270. We did.
Way back in 1997, when the State Highway Administration started its study, the Action Committee for Transit and other groups asked for an all-transit alternative. The Transportation Planning Board, the regional body Mr. Jenkins now chairs, backed us up.
SHA said they would meet us halfway and study an option consisting of one transitway plus HOV-only lanes on I-270.
But what SHA actually did was something quite different. They evaluated a mammoth construction project that would make the road 14 lanes wide between Shady Grove and Germantown. Most of the new lanes would be open to all vehicles.
Twelve years have gone by, and we’re still waiting for a study of the
transit alternative the region’s planners asked for in 1997.
Ben Ross
President,
School status quo needs to go
Across the nation, the outcry for reform of our public education system is getting louder. Even leaders of the Democratic Party, like President Barack Obama and the Rev. Al Sharpton, have joined Republicans in calling for fundamental changes in the way we teach our children.
However, our nation’s two largest teachers unions – the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers – are moving in the opposite direction. They’ve become increasingly militant in their defense of the status quo. They fear that any type of reform, particularly school choice, will threaten their guaranteed clientele of students, job security and lucrative benefits.
The teachers’ unions are using their political influence – mostly through the huge political contributions they make to candidates – to shoot down every type of suggested reform. Sadly, their efforts have been successful in many cities and states.
It’s time for the American people to take notice of this cynical effort to sabotage needed improvements to our educational system. After all, the schools belong to the taxpayers, not the unions.
Kyle Olson
Editor NEAexposed.com, AFTexposed.com
News takes a back seat to political propaganda
Today they ran out of the Express, so I took my first copy of The Examiner. It will be my last. The reporting of news seemed secondary to promoting a certain political perspective. It got to the point that your paper just became unreadable.
I don’t know if this is the result of the views of your owners, your editors, or both, but the next time you wonder why your circulation numbers lag behind the competition, perhaps you’ll consider whether its because they print news while you print propaganda.
Martin J. Crane
Silver Spring
