So if people use mass transit and light rail, gas will go up because less gas is sold. Also, transit and light-rail fares will go up to pay for higher gas prices. I understand people using mass transit and light rail locally, but this won’t change the cost of gas on a vacation trip.

I feel the best way to lower gas prices is to allow drilling in our own country wherever there is oil. This would stop our need to import oil from foreign countries. Also we should look into the reason these greedy oil companies are making millions upon millions of dollars in profit quarterly.

Rodney L. Berry
Vancouver

Still life in current bridge
I’d like to pin a rose on George Birnbaumer for his July 3 letter, “Folly in new bridge,” and add some thoughts.

• We’ve spent a fortune removing lead and painting the I-5 Bridge. It must have 50 years of service left.
• When Interstate 5 was opened, it took the load off Barbur Boulevard for only three years.
• If you build it, they will come. Traffic, that is.
• No highway design ever satisfied peak traffic volumes.
• I remember when all traffic between Los Angeles and Seattle went up Main Street and we had a single four-lane bridge.
• We could declare Mill Plain to Lombard a “congestion area” and drop the speed limit to 35 mph, take out that fancy guard rail, restore the fourth lane and increase volume about 40 percent. The approaches are already in place. They just need striping and signage.

William M. McLoughlin
Vancouver

Unfavorable views growing
When Gregg Herrington concludesin his June 27 opinion column, “How will history view Baird’s role?” that Democrat Cheryl Crist will not beat incumbent Rep. Brian Baird, I think he hasn’t talked to the people. The committee to elect Crist has heard many unfavorable views of Baird.

Baird’s voting record has aligned him with the Bush administration. He voted for war funding, to grant telecom industries immunity for their participation in spying on us, and for the bankruptcy bill.

The majority of people want our troops and contractors out of Iraq. Baird doesn’t hear his constituents. Herrington quoted Baird: “Making something public might precipitate a nuclear war.” That remark is fear-mongering and furthers the administration’s agenda. Secrets don’t promote a democracy; informed citizens with truth in the media do.

Crist’s platform includes pulling out of Iraq, health care for all, a healthy environment, sustainable economy and restoring the Constitution. She will restore integrity in the 3rd District.

Genevieve Kortes
Vancouver

Shift trucks to using rails
Why spend billions and suffer years of construction delays for a new Interstate 5 bridge when a perfectly good double-track rail bridge is less than a mile downstream? Much of the I-5 traffic is trucks carrying containers between Seattle or Canada and California markets. Build truck stop/transfer stations in Washington and Oregon and load the containers, or better yet drive whole trucks onto rail cars. Subsidize the rail transfer and charge heavy truck tolls on the existing I-5 and I-205 bridges to shift the traffic over.

The U.S. Transportation Energy Data Book says rail freight as little as one-tenth the diesel fuel per ton-mile as does trucking. We need to encourage long-haul trucks to shift off our crowded freeways and onto the rails where they belong. Then the bridges and roads we already have can handle our cars just fine.

Mike Butts
Portland

Treasure aviation benefits
Chuck Collins’ July 5 guest opinion, “Private jets exhaust taxpayer dollars,” is totally skewed and distorted. Again, an opinion is printed about general aviation (business aviation) that gives the uninformed reader the impression that general aviation is only for the privileged few at the expense of the taxpayers. Collins’ column has so many glaring distortions that it would take an entire page to correct and inform the populace of the benefits of general aviation.

If you only looked at the enormous industry that general aviation is in this country and the jobs (and tax revenue) the industry provides, it would stagger most imaginations. The jobs created in the manufacturing sector along with the subsequent employment in the service and operating arenas are among the highest in any industry.

It’s this kind of “opinion” that is responsible for bringing people to question the importance of such treasures as our own Pearson Airfield.

Al Anderson
Vancouver

Keep money, troops in U.S.
Poll after poll show that the American people want to bring our troops home from Iraq and do not want another war. A May Gallup Poll found that 59 percent of Americans think it would be good for the president of the U.S. to meet with the president of Iran. We want our leaders to use diplomacy to solve disputes, not violence.

Our nation is confronting soaring gas prices, a rising jobless rate, and a shaky stock market. We can’t afford to keep spending $12 billion a month on war. We must spend American funds on infrastructure and health care. Keep our money in America.

I implore Americans to oppose House Resolution 362 (Senate Resolution 580), which is a prelude to war with Iran. We need our leaders to move us towards a foreign policy our Founding Fathers would be proud of; a policy urged by Thomas Jefferson that would have “nothing to do with conquest.”

Don Jacobson
Vancouver

Initiate solar distribution
For the Ann Coulter readers who are “Tired of Democrat mantra,” (Lee Hemen’s July 6 letter): Remember, Coulter gives you only the data she wants you to get in order to promote her pro-corporate hysteria. She thinks God has selected Republicans to save the world. As far as drilling our way out of the gas prices goes, the world population and demand are growing faster than any new drilling can solve.

In July 1979, Jimmy Carter started a solar initiative that would have given us 20 percent of our electrical needs by 2000 (it would be even more now). It involved fixing the power grid to efficiently distribute solar power from the Sun Belt areas to the remainder of the country. The oil industry and the Saudi royal family, through their pick for president (Ronald Reagan) put an end to that. In 1986, Reagan even removed the solar panels from the White House, probably to keep his oil buddies happy. Coulter won’t tell you that sort of thing. It doesn’t sell her books.

Steve Rapalus
Ridgefield