In our economy of instant gratification, we are constantly asking for more and not looking at the long term effects.

In our economy of instant gratification, we are constantly asking for more and not looking at the long term effects.
It is great that we have an economy that allows us to have a high standard of living for most but we need to look at what is the legacy we are leaving our children and grand children. We ask our elected officials to look only to what can be performed during their term in office so that we can see the results without letting them make the difficult choices knowing in twenty or thirty years the choices will be more difficult and thrust upon their predecessors.   There was a time in human civilization that quality was important and that we produced to last and to create a better society for our future.
    

Take for instance Transit, In 1980 the sun sentinel reported on the future of Broward County and the needs to achieve a transit system that at that time would have cost around 4 billion dollars and wanted to put into place a one cent tax to be able to receive the Federal and State matching funds which at that time were in less demand.   Recently the business community through the People for Progress tried to get this same proposal enacted, only in 2006 the costs were closer to 24 billion and State and Federal matching funds are in much greater competition.  Unfortunately the education of this issue was not developed enough for the voters to understand the full impact this issue has on our community.
    

Transit is often misunderstood many feel that the purpose is to get the drivers out of their car, this is far from reality.  It is mainly to give the community a choice.  It has other benefits as well including less impact on the environment and creating other impacts to off set housing costs, allowing families to have one less car and thus more cash to put towards the cost of a house.  It also has great economic impacts, for every one dollar spent on transit 6 dollars is added to the economy.
    

The choices sometimes are difficult.  And we are already feeling the effect of the lack of transit choices on out lives, with more commute times and fewer options for employees who can’t afford to live here and get to work.  We have already been handed some difficult choices from our predecessors in this community that has been growing with amazing speed, perhaps this bump in the road will allow us to think about what we need and start accepting some of the responsibility for our future and not making them pay it all. We need to start allowing those who need to make the difficult choices begin to create a brighter future, which we are behind them and we are willing to make sacrifices so that our future doesn’t have to take it on all alone.