Leaving out the public: MLive reporting on Friday’s Transit Forum

On Friday, about 100 people attended a transit forum at New Hope Baptist Church in the southeast part of Grand Rapids.

The forum was hosted by Disability Advocates of Kent County, Faith in Motion, Concerned Citizens for Improved Transportation and the Kent County Essential Needs Task Force.

The forum began at 10:30am and concluded at 1:00pm, with the bulk of the time spent discussions the gains made over the past 10 years and soliciting input from people on what additional improvements need to be made.

People were provided with a list of vision statements from a variety of sources, statements that spoke to long-term transit needs. Participants were asked to draft their own vision statements that would be included in the ongoing discussion/planning around transit.

In addition to the vision statements, those in attendance were asked to look at key areas of transit, such as non-motorized transit, public transit, Intercity Options and the State infrastructure needs – roads, bridges, etc. Everyone was provided with options to chose from in terms of how people would prioritize the needed changes and at what cost. Once people chose their top suggestions they were also invited to write why they made such choices and how they would propose to pay for such needs, with an emphasis on how they would want their tax dollars used.

However, the above information was not shared by an MLive story, despite the fact that the reporter was present for the entire forum. What the MLive reporter focused on was the final hour of the forum where state officials that represented West Michigan talked about transit issues, primarily funding.

Granted, what the elected officials had to say was relevant, but the MLive reporter did not include any of the questions posed by those in attendance. The MLive story framed the last part of the forum as a partisan debate. The problem with framing the story this way, in addition to excluding comments from the public, was that is makes it seems as if there are critical differences between the political parties on major transit needs. The reality is that most of what was discussed had to do with maintaining and mildly improving the states infrastructure, with minimal discussion that addressed the more visionary possibilities that the audience looked at during the first 90 minutes of the forum.

It was disheartening for this writer that the state politicians did not address the critical needs of the disability community, even though there were several dozen members participating in the forum. The elected officials also did not address serious environmental aspects of transit or make any reference to transit as a justice issue. In fact, most agreed that transit was primarily an economic development issue.

To this writer, as long as critical issues like transit are tied to the market and not to basic human needs that promote justice, we are not likely to achieve a truly sustainable future.