Stop wasting taxpayer money on Red Bike | Letters

The Enquirer reported on Dec. 21 that Red Bike was "pausing" service in January. This follows the failure of bike-sharing initiatives in other cities including Houston and Minneapolis. Red Bike only collected $303,000 from rider fees in 2022 with 70% of its funding coming from government and business contributions.

Per the Enquirer article, the city of Cincinnati has provided Red Bike funding for $1.9 million since 2014. At the same time, the city has reduced automobile lanes and built bike lanes on Central Parkway, Clifton Avenue and multiple other streets. These lanes inconvenience thousands of drivers a day and are seldom used by any bicyclists. If you stand on Clifton Avenue for an hour at any time of day, you might see one bicyclist use the bike lane. Yet, the barriers built to separate it from the auto lanes are an eyesore and prevent city street cleaning vehicles from clearing debris out of the bike lanes.

The mayor and City Council have wasted millions of dollars on Red Bike and on the construction of bike lanes that are usually empty. Quit wasting taxpayer money and focus on crime prevention, litter, street repair and other bread-and-butter issues about which our citizens actually care.

Kevin Mohan, Clifton

Tuberville should apologize for delaying military promotions

Last Tuesday, the United State Senate confirmed military nominees after holding these promotions for 10 months because Sen. Tommy Tuberville didn’t like the military abortion policy. After he finally released his hold, Tuberville's comment was: "We didn’t get as much out of it as we wanted."

Mr. Tuberville, a better comment would have been an apology to us all for putting the military in a position of not having all hands on deck during this unstable time. It doesn’t appear Tuberville understands military needs while he plays with "getting what he wants."

Susan Kemp, Fairfield

Taxpayers shouldering the cost of illegal immigration

To those who support the unrestrained influx of illegal immigrants into our country, I'm wondering how many took Economics 101 in high school. I mention this because the Wall Street Journal just reported that almost 60% of illegal immigrant households are on taxpayer-funded welfare, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is not sustainable without the inevitable need for major tax increases on everyday Americans. It's one thing to be compassionate; it's another thing to employ some commonsense and basic economics.

Augie Slenkamp, Liberty Township

No true Republican would ever vote for inept Biden

A letter writer on Dec. 21, referred to a yard sign implying that the homeowner was a Republican who would vote for Joe Biden rather than Donald Trump. I don't believe that would happen. Biden's policies are killing the U.S. Our non-existent southern border is allowing thousands of  illegal immigrants to invade our country on a daily basis. Inflation over the past three years is a budget-killing 17%. There are two wars going on. Terrorists are attacking our troops in the Middle East with no in-kind response allowed by the Biden administration. None of this would have happened under a Trump administration. If that senile old man is reelected, America as we know it will cease to exist. Many in his own party do not want an 86-year-old Joe Biden anywhere near the presidency of this great country.

Mike Thompson, Loveland

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Stop wasting taxpayer money on Red Bike | Letters