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Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.)
"These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration,” he wrote. “These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them.”
Tweeting from the protest, Brady wrote, "Heard from veterans in wheel chairs, elderly that subway system inadequate." In his letter, he referred to a specific example of an 80-year-old woman and her 60-year-old daughter who were unable to get on a train due to overcrowding and were forced to pay for a cab.
In a response to a related complaint about poor service on Saturday, Metro officials pointed out both that scheduled track work was taking place and that the protest organizers had only predicted roughly 5,000 people would be at Freedom Plaza, with another 10,000 to 20,000 in front of the U.S. Capitol. According to the Metro officials, "The estimated numbers do not constitute 'heavy ridership' or warrant additional rail service." They added, "In the future, the event organizers can coordinate well in advance with Metro and arrange to pay for early openings of stations to accommodate their event, as the organizers of the Marine Corps Marathon, for example, do."
While we're all sympathetic to the plight of any nice old ladies who can't catch a train, Metro can't flood the system with trains if it doesn't know ahead of time that the demand will be there for it.
And yeah, in case anyone is curious, Rep. Brady voted against increased federal funding for Metro.
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They're twittering, so you have to put an '@' in front of that.
Cry me a river. We deal with this every day, and there are large protests all the time. I'm glad that people like this care about metro service now, people like Rep. Brady and Tom Colburn usually like to think that the Metro isn't something they need to fund or care about.
first gohmert, and now this clown?
can texas just secede already so we don't have to deal with these idiots anymore?
Forget the Alamo, Texas to Mexico!
If we give Texas back to Mexico then we can make DC a state without having to update all the flags. Please we'd get rid of that nasty "residents of the 50 states & DC" construction you always see on contests.
To quote Tuco from "The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly," "I like big fat men like you. When they fall they make more noise."
Wah WAH wahhhhhhhhhhh....
They were protesting out of control government spending and taxes! Now they're complaining that the government run transportation system isn't doing a good enough job providing services to those protesting...those services.
Why don't we make public transportation a fundamental right in this country?? Screw healthcare!
I have never been more proud of METRO. Now if some kind of switch malfunction could have occured on Saturday....
"The trains are terrible," Kevin railed.
Okay, I'll stop.
"Okay, I'll stop doing Tom Swifties about Metro", NewHCE backtracked.
lol +1
Wait until you see the one I am saving for the next dog thread.
"tom swifties"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swifty
Game language geeks play.
alright, i don't want to go too far down this rabbit-hole.
I imagine that if the system had worked flawlessly, they'd be screaming "DO YOU KNOW WHO ELSE HAD THE TRAINS RUN ON TIME?!? Gallery Place is the new treblinka!"
Reports indicate that the crowding occurred not on the trains, rather on the escalators with "stand left"-ers.
"escalefter" I believe is the technical term... coupled with "escalabumps"
It appears that the citizens of Southeast Texas have elected the representative they deserve most.
Idiots.
Why can't you commies see that all these real Americans were trying to do was emulate their revolutionary forefathers.
And all they wanted was to use a goddamn government-funded underground public rail system to get there.
diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiickheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeead
any word on how this dickhead (see above)feels about dc voting rights? just so we here in the district can be utterly positive that he's a raging dickhead (again, see above)?
Well, he's sponsored some hard-hitting, much-needed legislation Commending Craig Biggio of the Houston Astros for reaching 3,000 base hits as a Major League Baseball player and for his outstanding service to baseball and the Houston, Texas, region. I takes a lot of guts to commend someone for hitting stuff and running around or something.
He can't even get that right. If you're going to commend Biggio, it should be for getting hit by pitches.
Don't get greedy, Kev. Just be happy that the train didn't run over any old ladies and leave it at that.
Your name...your avatar.
I refuse to call him "Bainer"
Sadly the irony is entirely missed by the whiners involved.
I don't understand the two ladies who couldn't get on a train and were forced to take a cab. Does Metro have a new "only one train going to your destination EVER" line that I don't know about??
they could have taken a bus, i'm sure, but those scary, $1-a-ride circulators might be populated with socialists and people of color, so you want to avoid them.
Score a point for Metro...nothing to lose by telling a detractor of their's to go screw himself.
I had the misfortune of sharing a train with the Teabaggers this weekend. Part of the reason the trains were so crowded was the incredible obesity of certain protestors who were easily taking up the space of three normal people.
+1. Probably from riding around in their behemoth SUVs for the majority of their lifetimes.
The fact he can say all this with a straight face blows my mind.
From what I hear there were enough trains and its not Metro's fault here when the organizers did such a bad job of organizing. Chances are that the overweight and diabetic tea baggers were confused by what to do on Metro or with not having tons of personal space since they've rarely stepped out of their cars before.
How to get DCist commenters to stop complaining about weekend metro delays: have their ideological opposites complain about weekend metro delays.
Someone needs to inform Representative Brady that Metro fails to serve people with disabilites every damn day of the week. Unless you have psychic abilities to tell what elevators are broken, chances are your travel will be full of fail or circuitous at best.
I heard a protester chastising others, "Don't ride the Metro! It's owned by the government!"
I thought about asking him to get off the sidewalk and to avoid using the streets, but it was such a pretty day.
+1 on the obesity comment. These people will be so happy when their gastric bypass surgeries cost 8 bucks and they get their metro fares reimbursed.
OH MY GOD THE IRONY!
So this @$$hole is complaining because GOVERNMENT MONEY WAS NOT SPENT to transport his buddies who were going to COMPLAIN ABOUT GOVERNMENT SPENDING MONEY?! What a load of crap--that guy has a lot of effing nerve to write such a letter!
The Metro would have been able to 'service' the tea baggers if it were properly funded! Furthermore, no idiots in southern texas pay any taxes that can be linked back to Metro (with the exception of stimulous funds perhaps)... they got no room to complain! They should try riding it every day!
I don't understand how you can complain about government spending but then also complain about the ill effects of reduced government spending! It's completely illogical... if you cut spending, you cut service--you can't have your cake and eat it too! Stupid texans!
Actually, the service was inadequate not do to lack of funding or maintenance; it was due to lack of planning on the protest's part. It wasn't like a train broke down clogging the whole system.
.. and increased funding from the government would not go to day to day operation typically. even if WMATA had limitless funds, they probably still would not run trains much more often on a typical weekend. there isn't demand for it.
And the libertarians rail, "If Dagny Taggart had been running these trains, none of this would have ever happened."
Aw, Brady had to cancel his live chat on the Houston Chronicle's website today: http://blogs.chron.com/txpotomac/2009/09/web_chat_with_rep_kevin_brady.html
Gee, what a shame. And what a surprise!
This is what happens when you give Congress free parking at National Airport.
Get back on the Parking Shuttle Liz.
Brady and his ilk are so stupid, I had to change my avatar.
Ha, the dumba@@es couldn't even get enough people to constitute 'heavy ridership'... our Nationals games warrant more Metro service than their idiotic protest does.
Please, please, please let Jon Stewart pick this up for The Daily Show tonight!
+1 that would be divine.
He cries crocodile tears for a bunch of stranded teabaggers, but won't do shit for those of us who use the system every day? Asshole.
BTW, those crowd predictions weren't far off. Not much more than 50,000 total.
I'm going to borrow a line from our esteemed former Veep Dick Cheney, and kindly invite the gentleman from Texas to go f@ck himself.
Metro was never designed to carry that many walker-using Medicare recipients protesting single-payer healthcare.
it's not enough to be fat-a$$ freeloaders, they have to complain about the services they used but refused to fund for on top of it.
Kevin Brady looks like a penis pump.
Why were the tea party protesters, taking the metro anyway? I thought only commies took public transportation. Is they were true Americans they would have drove.
"Tweeting from the protest, Brady wrote, "Heard from veterans in wheel chairs, elderly that subway system inadequate." In his letter, he referred to a specific example of an 80-year-old woman and her 60-year-old daughter who were unable to get on a train due to overcrowding and were forced to pay for a cab."
This quote stood out to me. Overcrowded trains? Regular metro riders deal with this almost every day its called rush hour.
yeah, and we've been asking our senators and rep. to do something about this funding-wise for years...
oh wait.