Don’t miss an opportunity to have your voice heard

OUR OPINION
Published: September 27, 2008

Mass transportation riders of Northern Virginia unite! Let your voices be heard!

The Virginia Railway Express is considering hiking its rates by as much as 25 percent by 2010. It is holding meetings to get rider feedback on this proposal, but mostly, it is getting silence.

Thank goodness some citizens care enough to speak up. Joseph Sutton was the only person to attend a meeting Wednesday about the proposed fare hike.

There have been four other meetings so far on this subject, all receiving little interest from the public. Meetings in Fredericksburg and Washington, D.C., had a grand, combined total of 30 people attend.
The VRE has received almost 180 written comments about the fare hike.

Come on people, show some interest. VRE is giving its riders a rare opportunity to tell it what they think. You have an opportunity to explain the impact this rate hike could have on you. Your voices could
sway VRE officials’ decision.

But if you are silent, then you can rest assured that VRE will do whatever it wants and you will just have to silently accept it.

Democracy in this country is usually a political thing, but the frame of mind and processes involved in this form of government extend to other areas of our lives as well. VRE is giving its riders a
Democratic opportunity here — an opportunity to be included in the discussion of changes that will affect their future. If the opportunity is not taken, it may not be provided again in the future.

There are two more meetings to be held. One is in Burke on Monday and another is in Manassas on Tuesday. VRE riders should attend and let VRE officials know where they stands on a hike increase.

When the people are given a chance to influence the changes that happen in their lives, they should accept it, otherwise they will be blown around like leaves by the winds of fate.

Stop drifting and jump in. Monday and Tuesday are your chances.