The front page piece today on Cherriots is very weird. Its subject is totally legit: An increase in disorderly rider behavior and even outright assault on drivers and other employees.
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| Front page today |
But it starts by dragging a person through the mud, focusing on personal despair and decline in a lead anecdote: "she grew despondent after leaving her job and drank heavily. Six months later...she was dead."
Rather than discussing the Pandemic (only briefly alluding to security work group paused during the Pandemic), our housing crisis, the surge of anger in right-wing extremism, a whole stew of things that might intensify or bring on despair, things that also have degraded our public spaces and public goods, it points to the change from an elected to a Governor-appointed Board.
And it talks about bus stops being unsafe.
It starts with a legitimate problem for analysis, and some of the things it mentions might indeed be ingredients in a problem, but overall it seems more interested in developing a case against transit and against Cherriots. Its total shape makes it a kind of a hit piece, aimed at discouraging people from using transit. Its pretty autoist. Just very weird.
We'll probably come back to it later. It will be interesting to read how others respond to the piece and what elements and details in it seem important or not.
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