Rita Matthews: Trucks are scary, and there are so many more of them
Last week I sat on Coldwell Avenue as a freight train passed. If was a beautiful sight, full of Maersk and Evergreen containers. No graffiti on them. Obviously a big ship had come in and this train got about 70 containers that had not been put on trucks.
This morning, as I entered the freeway downtown, I was in line with two oil tankers and four semis. This terrifies me as I notice that nearly every accident either involves a truck or a truck causes the problem. And I hear we are expanding our freeways by adding a few inches to each lane for the trucks!
Wait a minute! Weren’t the freeways made for our cars? Wasn’t the railroad built to handle freight? Why can’t we insist the railroad handles more freight? The situation has gotten out of hand. Trucks seem to be everywhere! Why can’t we insist the railroads be brought up to standard so we can stay on the train to go from the Valley to Los Angeles? I can’t imagine Modesto in another 10 years of truck growth! Argh!
Rita Matthews, Modesto
This story was originally published November 22, 2016 at 12:11 PM with the headline "Rita Matthews: Trucks are scary, and there are so many more of them."