Officials must focus on transportation

The juxtaposition of The Sun's article "Billions in transit funding put at risk" and editorial "The needed route on roads and transit" (July 27) could not have been more timely.

Any objective evaluation of the region's transportation planning process would find that the elected officials of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council have failed to implement federal and state laws encouraging public participation.

The result has been the adoption in 1995 and 1998 of seriously flawed transportation plans that will increase traffic congestion and reduce air quality.

With this result, no wonder elected officials maintain an arms-length relationship to the process and discourage meaningful public dialogue.

Any new state transportation funding increase should incorporate a mechanism that restructures the regional decision-making body into an effective entity, with additional members representing various citizen and transportation interests.

After all, additional funding will not guarantee quality investments. That will take leadership and public interest -- not continued lip service.

Alfred W. Barry III Baltimore

The writer is chair of the Committee on the Region of the Citizens Planning and Housing Association.

I want to commend The Sun's excellent coverage of the failure of regional transportation planning in the article "Billions in transit funding put at risk" (July 27).

While decisions regarding transportation profoundly shape our quality of life, how they are made is little understood.

The article exposed a reckless process that offers no alternative to a car-bound existence, but brilliantly succeeds in increasing congestion.

In the article, Baltimore County Executive C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger says he and other county executives cannot attend meetings to decide how to spend $16 billion in transportation funds because, "We have to run our government, too."

In a region where 35 percent of the public in a poll named congestion the foremost quality-of-life issue, Mr. Ruppersberger might re-examine his obligation as an elected official.

I hope he and the other executives will follow the lead of Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens who pledged to participate in these crucial decisions.

Hank Goldstein Baltimore