Light rail already refuted

In response to David Henry Tiffany’s letter, “Time to revisit light rail,” July 21, the people of Spokane voted down light rail because of its cost and limited ridership issues. These two issues alone cannot be refuted.

As for another “study of light rail,” were the first two studies at costs of several millions of taxpayer dollars not enough? The last I read from the “studies” was a 10- to 15-mile line at a cost close to $400 million. That cost surely has not gone down.

Some of the money would come from your taxes through the federal government, which is itself financially unstable, and the rest would come from local taxes. The bulk of local taxes would be by taxpayers who would not even be able to use light rail. I may be mistaken, but a light rail system has never turned a profit. Future maintenance and operation costs of $7 million to $10 million per year would be a further burden on taxpayers and defer money that could have been used for other municipal projects.

Urban sprawl and connection to other cities has always been a challenge for transportation systems, but …

Daniel Day

Spokane