Dori: Now the addicts get to ride Seattle buses for free, too?

When I was a kid on the mean streets of Ballard, I would ride Seattle buses a fair amount. If I wanted to get anywhere, I had to ride my bike or take the #17 bus.

I’d ride the #17 down 32nd Avenue with my Little League buddies to Interbay Putt-Putt Golf. In the summer, we’d play golf all day and have a hot dog in their little clubhouse. If I wanted to take the bus, if I wanted to play putt-putt, if I wanted to get a hot dog, I had to pay for it all. So I got my first job at Food Town when I was 12, stocking shelves, crushing boxes, doing whatever they needed. I’m proud to say I’ve had a job every day since then.

I was also a bus rider in my UW days, as I didn’t have enough money to live on campus. So, I think I know quite a bit about riding Seattle buses, and about what it takes to make enough money to ride the bus.

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Therefore, I was disturbed at the Seattle Times’ new story about King County Metro testing a new fare enforcement system designed to aid low-income bus riders. It will be based on riders’ incomes because “many people who fail to pay their fares are experiencing homelessness.”

When we had a very low income, I still paid the bus fare. I got a job so that I could do so.

So now we’re going to just stop enforcing fares for a segment of the population? It’s like what’s going on in stores downtown, where homeless people can just walk in and shoplift. Apparently now low-income people can just take the bus without paying.

They know that they can get away with all of this without anything happening to them. The word is out. “Come to the Puget Sound area. Everything is free.” Why else would all of the drug vagrants around the country come here?

Grocery stores shouldn’t have to put up with shoplifting. Department stores shouldn’t have to put up with it. But that has become the culture here. “Let’s just have other people pay for your stuff, if that’s the way you want to run your life.”

Here’s what I suggest — if someone is homeless and they want to transition out and get help, let’s give them help. We’ll give them an ORCA card to ride the Seattle buses for free, as long as they can prove that they need it to get to a job that will help them pull themselves up.

But we shouldn’t give taxpayer-funded “free” stuff to people because they have made the horrible choice to live a life of drug addiction and crime. That is a completely backwards “solution” to the problem. Everything we do around here is 180 degrees different from what we should be doing.

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