State won’t see payoff for expanded commuter rail

To the editor:
Your reporter did a terrific job (in a story in the Nov. 4 edition) ferreting out some of the nasty facts about the Wickford and Warwick train stations and the picture taken from the empty top floor of the Wickford “choo choo” station says it all. There are more cars at the Walmart next to Wickford station than will ever be at the station and every year the state pays an additional $721,659 to the owner on top of the $311 million to build these tombs. Wow!
More astounding than this fiasco is your editorial entitled “Empty parking spaces not a sign of failure.” How is it possible that PBN, dedicated to the business of the marketplace, could come to the conclusion that this endeavor is not a total financial disaster for this state and its taxpayers? The ridership is down in the past year and not even 10 percent of the garages are full and you have the audacity to write that this is not a failure!
And if the trend continues, we are looking at the possibility of these stations being abandoned and torn down because they cannot be converted into anything other than a ramped race course for the handicapped. So how can the reality of this situation be called anything but a failure?
Behold the Liberal Mind: ever-willing to review the facts succinctly and never able to reach the right conclusion. It has been blinded and infatuated with its own imagination towards “progressivism” and, therefore, can never see the damage that it inflicts on others and on the culture it desperately seeks to change.
Sincerely,
Erik Thorp
Warwick