Afternoon links: Contact your representatives

Ask to be heard

CSG has a petition to ask the WMATA Board to hold a hearing on the proposed cuts. Riders deserve a chance to weigh in; currently, the agenda for tomorrow’s special Board meeting doesn’t even have a public comment period (because it’s a “special meeting”).

Transit projects create more jobs

A Smart Growth America report argues that transit projects generate more jobs than highway projects, based on the stimulus (ARRA) money spent so far. Putting more into transit in the second stimulus, now under consideration, would create more jobs than the status quo. (T4A)

Dog owner tax break?

Dog walkers create eyes on the street (even if they sometimes also leave poop in your trash cans). Ezra Klein suggests a tax break to get dog owners to move to developing neighborhoods. (not) (The regular page seems to be not working now. If the above links doesn’t work, go to Ezra’s main page.)  (Tip: not)

Photoshopped ad deceptive or thrifty?

Unsuck DC Metro notices that Metro Photoshopped an ad showing the million-miler bus operators, repeating several faces around the picture. Fox 5 picked up the story, though the link now doesn’t work. However, as Metro clarified, they do have more than this many million-milers; with all the pressure on Metro to save money, it seems prudent to have made the ad without having to get everyone in the room at the same time (probably on the clock).

Train fatality in BaltCo

A 14-year-old girl was hit by an Amtrak train (and yes, I didn’t say “hit by a train engineer”)  when she and a friend were walking on the tracks in Baltimore County yesterday. (Baltimore Sun)