The region's vulnerability to transit strikes has given rise to calls to outlaw them by some California Democrats. (Transit strikes have been banned even in such labor-friendly bastions as Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York.) The San Francisco Chronicle says that it's time:
This strike may represent the most egregious and most counterproductive overreach by the unions. They and their consultants should have recognized in July that public sentiment was not with them.BART is fairly quick, reliable, and cheap, and, excluding the intra-San Francisco Muni system, far more people in the Bay Area rely on it every day than all other forms of public transportation. BART is also a good example of the danger of entrusting too much power to a single supplier, public or private, for-profit or non-profit.
Their obliviousness has brought the issue to the fore: Why should workers in a service so essential to Bay Area life and safety even be allowed to strike?
We who live on the Peninsula are fortunate to have several commuting options to San Francisco: SamTrans express buses, CalTrain, BART, and, of course, one's own car. Diversification is good, because it means that you have a back-up plan. © 2013 Stephen Yuen
No comments:
Post a Comment