On March 5,

("The Amtrak Commute") that a growing number of Clackamas County residents are riding Amtrak from Oregon City to Portland for their commutes. This suggests more citizens are discovering that, in addition to their desire to live "green," they cannot afford their current level of automobile usage.

However, a vocal group of rail opponents wants to remove necessary transit options. Even the Amtrak alternative mentioned above could be in jeopardy.

The automobile is the most expensive and subsidized form of transportation. The direct costs include the car and its maintenance; gas and oil; insurance; license and registration; and the depreciation of the car.

Then there are taxes and costs related to the use of cars, including money that goes to bureaucracies that issue licenses and registrations, police and their cars and insurance, salaries associated with courts that deal with traffic laws, and jails for the worst traffic offenders.

Additionally, deaths and injuries cost about $230 billion in 2009, according to the

; car theft in 2010 cost $4.5 billion dollars for 700,000 cars stolen nationally; and maintaining and building roads can, according to the Federal Highway Administration, cost up to $19.5 million per lane mile.

Other costs include oil company subsidies and tax breaks, which hide the fact that if big oil were not so favored gas would cost about $20 a gallon; billions for infrastructure to distribute fuels, such as the Keystone Pipeline Project, which could cost more than $7 billion and will likely raise the price of gas; and the 3.7 billion hours stuck in traffic, which costs billions in wasted time and fuel.

Automobile use cannot be sustained at current levels. Alternatives must be built. But as columnist George Will recently wrote, America is changing "from a nation that celebrated getting things done to a nation that celebrates people and groups who prevent things from being done" (Oregonlive.com, Jan. 16).

In Clackamas County, a vocal group of obstructionists, significantly funded by an industrialist from Nevada, Americans for Prosperity and some wealthy citizens of an unincorporated enclave in Dunthorpe and Riverdale, are stopping transit projects from being done. They will spread their opposition to Washington County so it can join Clackamas County in a race to the bottom.

We must reject these obstructionists and move forward with transit alternatives. Our economic health depends on it.

— David Jorling lives in Lake Oswego and serves on the city's Transportation Advisory Board. He is a former attorney for the Portland City Attorney's Office.