Solutions to commuter woes
Regarding “Time to face reality: Yes, we need another bridge to the East Bay” (Open Forum, Feb. 9): Roumen V. Mladjov’s proposal for a new, privately financed bridge for private cars is perhaps the least visionary solution to ease the Bay Area’s commute woes. Where will all these cars park? Will we be building new freeways to accommodate them? Will they be private cars (which now sit idle 96 percent of the time) or will they be a fleet of autonomous, corporate-owned rideshares?
New Yorkers take transit for 54 percent of trips and walk 10 percent of the time. Londoners and Parisians enjoy similar numbers. Bay residents consistently have one of the longest commutes of any American city, with many of us in private cars, that can take more than three hours a day. When will we end this waste of our precious time and attention?
It would be wiser and more cost effective to consider tax credits for telecommuting or short commutes; to build dense, affordable housing near job and transit centers; and to invest in new, dedicated thoroughfares for clean, intercity rapid transit (bus and rail). These are the big-city solutions we must strive for.
Michael Tank, San Francisco
Double standard
President Trump was quick to point out that an undocumented immigrant was arrested in the tragic drunk driving deaths of Indianapolis Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson and his Uber driver. Then days later, Trump aide Rob Porter resigned after accounts of spousal abuse were published, along with the restraining order obtained by his second ex-wife and photos of his first ex-wife’s blackened eye.
When can we expect our president to tweet us his thoughts on Porter’s ethnicity, religion and immigration status? Tom Ruppel, Dixon
Question judgment
I have wondered for a long time, especially as of late, why we acquiesce to those with military service, rarely questioning their judgment. It could be argued that, because many of these individuals courageously risked their lives on our behalf in unpopular wars (wars a large majority of Americans did not support), we feel a sense of guilt. A guilt that perhaps subconsciously causes us not to question their beliefs and actions and to assume they are heroes. This is a textbook example of the appeal to authority fallacy. Sadly, automatically deferring can have serious consequences.
Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the George W. Bush/ Dick Cheney 2004 presidential campaign and current ABC News political analyst, alludes to this. He offers an important recommendation about this acquiescence as it relates to General John Kelly’s praising the character of former White House aide Rob Porter: “I am hoping this latest insight in Gen. Kelly (and previous insights into Gen. Michael Flynn) will allow us to stop reflexively giving folks with military service a pass on questioning them and their integrity. Military service does not make a man or woman honorable on its own.”
Richard Cherwitz, Austin, Texas
Let Trump pay
Our draft dodger in chief president now wants to stage a parade of military might down Pennsylvania Avenue. The good news is that he can pay for it from the tens of millions of dollars he will personally reap from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Tom Davey, Mill Valley