MTA Wants Your Uninformed Input

I received the following email from PR Coordinator Kacie Lacy (your tax dollars at work) on the Purple Line:

Dear Community Member:

Mike Madden of the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) asked me to contact you on his behalf. As part of our on-going commitment to public involvement for the Purple Line Study, the MTA will hold Public Open Houses throughout the study area in December. We encourage you and your community members to attend. The meeting dates, locations, and additional meeting information is attached.

Your input along with that of your community members is very important to us and I hope that you will be able to attend one of our Open Houses. Thank you for your interest and continued involvement in this process. Please contact Michael Madden at 410-767-3694 or at mmadden@mtamaryland.com, if you have any questions regarding the Purple Line or our upcoming Open Houses.

Ironically, I received this email telling me how Mike Madden wants my "input" and with an attached post card requesting my "feedback" just after my earlier post explaining that MTA is uninterested in your informed feedback as Mike Madden will not release the ridership study before the meeting. Indeed, it is unclear if any aspect of the ridership study will ever be made public other than its conclusions and MTAs preferred route. The public is not going to be permitted to examine the basis for any of the conclusions because then the public might question them.

That is not a study but an assertion. And it makes a mockery of the pretense of interest in public comment--not to mention the legal requirement for it.