If you have to resort to mass transit, you have poor zoning (density too high)
555...@mail.teclink.net
I live in a town where mass transit (busses) is a failure - thank
goodness. An economic failure, because not enough people use mt to pay
for itself. A practical failure because not enough people want to use it
to make it have a positive cost-benefit ratio. A lot of empty / under
utilized busses occupy traffic lanes, and STOP in them and block them and
otherwise interfere with car movement. They create smells, noise, and
noxious fumes, and are one of the reasons people don't like living in
"cities".
George Conklin
Actually this is a pretty average picture in the USA
today. What town are you posting from?
Drew Beck
555...@mail.teclink.net wrote:
>
> I live in a town where mass transit (busses) is a failure - thank
> goodness. An economic failure, because not enough people use mt to pay
> for itself.
Wonder if enough people use cars, will car use pay for itself?
> A practical failure because not enough people want to use it
> to make it have a positive cost-benefit ratio.
Measured how?
> A lot of empty / under
> utilized busses occupy traffic lanes, and STOP in them and block them and
> otherwise interfere with car movement.
In our city, there are about 140 buses operating during the peak hours
all over the metro area, transporting roughly 40,000 passengers/day.
Wonder how many cars there are on the streets at the same time? I think
you'd be happy that one bus might be taking 20-40 cars off the road
during the rush hours, so YOU can get to the next red light faster.
> They create smells, noise, and
> noxious fumes, and are one of the reasons people don't like living in
> "cities".
Ya, good thing cars run on air and people don't honk their horns
incessantly or play their bass-booming stereos at full blast, otherwise
cars would be annoying too! It's also great that we don't have to rip
up untold thousands of acres of land every year so that people commuting
from the far exurbs via their cars can "visit" the urban area to work
and play during the day.
George Conklin
In article <349194...@ci.madison.wi.us>,
Drew Beck <db...@ci.madison.wi.us> wrote:
>555...@mail.teclink.net wrote:
>>
>> I live in a town where mass transit (busses) is a failure - thank
>> goodness. An economic failure, because not enough people use mt to pay
>> for itself.
>
>Wonder if enough people use cars, will car use pay for itself?
>
>> A practical failure because not enough people want to use it
>> to make it have a positive cost-benefit ratio.
>
>Measured how?
>
>> A lot of empty / under
>> utilized busses occupy traffic lanes, and STOP in them and block them and
>> otherwise interfere with car movement.
>
>In our city, there are about 140 buses operating during the peak hours
>all over the metro area, transporting roughly 40,000 passengers/day.
>Wonder how many cars there are on the streets at the same time? I think
>you'd be happy that one bus might be taking 20-40 cars off the road
>during the rush hours, so YOU can get to the next red light faster.
>
than 1.2 passengers in them. Those laws were put into place
to force people onto buses. It failed. It forced people to
drive their cars privately and alone.
Adam Weiss
Drew Beck wrote:
>
> 555...@mail.teclink.net wrote:
> >
> > I live in a town where mass transit (busses) is a failure - thank
> > goodness. An economic failure, because not enough people use mt to pay
> > for itself.
>
> Wonder if enough people use cars, will car use pay for itself?
Interesting issue here. Could the American addiction to the automobile
be a function of capitalism and a contempt for anything public (and
hence communist)? You can't think of cars in terms of how they will pay
for themselves. A car is a posession; more than that, it's an
investment (a very bad one, actually, since it persistenly has negative
dividends and can never be sold for more than it was bought for). But
Americans want something that they own. It's much more comfortable for
many Americans to go everywhere in their own car and to own their own
home. Riding public transit is akin to (gasp) living in a public
housing project.
But the fact that most Americans think that way doesn't mean that
everyone does. Call me a commie but I think that public transit is a
necessity to every city. I've said it before and I'll say it again --
people with cars should be thankful for public transit (especially
trains) since without them they'd spend even more time in traffic jams.
>
> > A practical failure because not enough people want to use it
> > to make it have a positive cost-benefit ratio.
>
> Measured how?
>
> > A lot of empty / under
> > utilized busses occupy traffic lanes, and STOP in them and block them and
> > otherwise interfere with car movement.
>
> In our city, there are about 140 buses operating during the peak hours
> all over the metro area, transporting roughly 40,000 passengers/day.
> Wonder how many cars there are on the streets at the same time? I think
> you'd be happy that one bus might be taking 20-40 cars off the road
> during the rush hours, so YOU can get to the next red light faster.
Exactly what I said.
>
> > They create smells, noise, and
> > noxious fumes, and are one of the reasons people don't like living in
> > "cities".
>
> Ya, good thing cars run on air and people don't honk their horns
> incessantly or play their bass-booming stereos at full blast, otherwise
> cars would be annoying too! It's also great that we don't have to rip
> up untold thousands of acres of land every year so that people commuting
> from the far exurbs via their cars can "visit" the urban area to work
> and play during the day.
I wouldn't say it in such a green manner myself. I'd put it in terms of
personal economics. What if I had a car in New York City. Well. First
I'd be paying an excise tax on it. Second I'd have to pay for gas (a
small but significant cost). Third there would be parking expenses (why
drive to work and pay $9 for parking every day when I could take the
subway and spend $3?) Finally there's the pains in the ass involved in
having to move the car from one side of the street to the other once a
week.
Of course, if I lived in the suburbs I'd need a car because without one
I'd starve. But why the hell would I want to do that? All the good
bars are downtown. ;) And the museums, and the stores, and the
libraries....
--
Adam Weiss
aw...@erols.com
--
On a Sailing Ship to Nowhere
Leaving any Place
If the Summer Turns to Winter
Yours is no Disgrace
--
555...@mail.teclink.net
What could be more practical, convenient, and personal than a private
capsule that you have at your disposal at all times for transporting you
and items that are larger, more numerous or private than you can carry in
just your own person?
We have that capsule now. . . . the car.
It's up to urban planners to propose the best rules for humans to utilize
this idea form of transportation. Urban planners are failing when they
have to force people to abandon such an advantageous capsule, and resort
to inferior "mass transit".
The "capsule" gives humans the opportunity to settle in less dense
"rat-like" cities. It exposes them to nature better than cities do.
Critics refer to suburban "sprawl" as if that in itself is something bad.
But city services such as retail shopping, schools, fire and police
protection tend to follow the people out into the suburbs giving them all
the ammenities of cities with all the convenience of living in less
crowded nature and knowing the neighborliness of "small town" living.
Big cities suck!
Robert Coté
In article <3492d...@news5.kcdata.com>, 555...@mail.teclink.net wrote:
[deletia]...
>Big cities suck!
Troll, don't waste resources responding. Unless of course you don't like
being told what you can and cannot do with a common public resource.
For the sarcastically challenged: "This message contains a self
incriminating paradox."
The problem with trolls is that acknowledging them is a defeat and ignoring
them implies either acceptance or lack of respect for the concept rather
than the inflamatory post.
The only reason I've bothered is because the parallel is irresitable. Many
a.p.u posters continually call the very low marginal use of things like
private autos an example of the tragedy of the commons. They are right
but then proceed to argue with the likes of Mr 555. How can someone who
cannot resist the very abuses they object to presume to advocate changes?
The other reason is the value of the concept.
If publictransit is "better," why does it cost more, charge less, raise
more objections, take longer, operate less frequently, etc? What does
publictransit do better? Don't say save energy/resources without being
prepared to discuss things like economic losses due to overtaxation to
support publictransit, the portion of road construction dedicated to
busses, the time value of money, etc.
Here's an interesting proposition, pick any sucessful, pick the most
sucessful, public transit system in the nation and see if any private
corporation would buy the entire organization for a dollar, no strings
attached. Now add one string, they must continue to provide transit,
watch the bidders melt away. Great assets that are put to poor uses.
--
***************************************************************
Why are car transports called shipments and boat transports cargo?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the purpose(s) of this message, Robert Cote is tech...@west.net
***************************************************************
George Conklin
This is precisely what the advertisements for steam
railroad trains said in 1880. You know what? They were
right according to the vast majority of the American
population.
George Conklin
In article <2136.286T2...@ican.net>,
Tina or Adam Szymczak <szym...@ican.net> wrote:
>No, it's not up to urban planners to propose anything - it's up to the
>people residing and working in a given municipality to propose the best
>rules. I still can't believe that some people in this NG think that
>planners have god-like powers, more power then elected public officials.
>
The big lie once again. Planners come forth with a local
planning map all complete, hold a few poorly-planned public
meetings packed with their friends, and declare that the
public said we need to do this. A Charette is a lie.
craig sweet
Robert Coté wrote:
> Here's an interesting proposition, pick any sucessful, pick the most
> sucessful, public transit system in the nation and see if any private
> corporation would buy the entire organization for a dollar, no strings
> attached. Now add one string, they must continue to provide transit,
> watch the bidders melt away. Great assets that are put to poor uses.
>
> --
> ***************************************************************
> Why are car transports called shipments and boat transports cargo?
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> For the purpose(s) of this message, Robert Cote is tech...@west.net
> ***************************************************************
Or, lets try this one...pick any city street system, county road system, or
state highway system and ask any private company to maintain the system with
gas tax funds only, no general fund money. Any takers?
Robert Coté
Craig Sweet wrote:
-Robert Coté wrote:
-> Here's an interesting proposition, pick any sucessful, pick the most
-> sucessful, public transit system in the nation and see if any private
-> corporation would buy the entire organization for a dollar, no strings
-> attached. Now add one string, they must continue to provide transit,
-> watch the bidders melt away. Great assets that are put to poor uses.
-Or, lets try this one...pick any city street system, county road system, or
-state highway system and ask any private company to maintain the system with
-gas tax funds only, no general fund money. Any takers?
Even though your offer is nowhere near equivilant, I'll still take the
Mass Turnpike and laugh all the way to the bank. Now admit you are
wrong and let's move on.
Gas tax money, hmm. Does it all go to roads or does some get diverted
to things like transit?
The offer above still needs more discussion. Without the "string" there
are a lot of systems I'd love to own. The property values of fixed and
rolling assets are tremendous. Maybe I could sell access to bus only
lanes and turnouts to people willing to pay for the privledge, etc. The
city wins big also. All that land back on the tax rolls, wow.
--
***************************************************************
This is your brain. thiz z yur brane witowt spel chek,.. nny kwestons?
Craig
Can't you, as an Urban Planner (assumption), see the benefits that mass
transit can bring to a city (or region for that matter). Please see my
replies below. I would welcome a discussion on this matter.
> I live in a town where mass transit (busses) is a failure - thank
> goodness. An economic failure, because not enough people use mt to pay
> for itself.
Was this not researched thoroughly by your Planning Dept. to determine
feasibility/usability statistics, etc.? If the city was not in need of
mass transit, why was it implemented?
> A practical failure because not enough people want to use it
> to make it have a positive cost-benefit ratio.
See above comment. From the standpoint that mass transit *is* needed for
your city (why else start it?), I can see the possibility that routes were
not defined in such a way that the public was aware of the opportunities,
adequate advertising may not have been directed towards the effort, routes
may not have been those commonly utilized by motorists, etc, etc, etc. Any
possibilities there?
> A lot of empty / under
> utilized busses occupy traffic lanes, and STOP in them and block them and
> otherwise interfere with car movement.
Mass transit did not decrease ADT flows in your city, so of course the
busses acted to further decrease LOS on the roadways. Had the transit been
utilized by the citizens, there would have been less traffic on the streets
to begin with. Additionally, constructing an additional right lane (a
turning lane of sorts) at bus stops would alleviate any problems with
stopping through traffic in the area. If the right of way didn't permit
this, the far right lane could be striped accordingly so that motorists
could avoid that lane during peak traffic and/or bussing hours.
> They create smells, noise, and
> noxious fumes, and are one of the reasons people don't like living in
> "cities".
If utilized properly, the exhaust, noise, etc. created by a bus would far
outweigh the individual cars that would theoretically be 'at home in the
garage'. Proper maintenance, etc, can also help alleviate environmental
and noise pollution. A few other points to consider:
- Light rail is also an option: The City of Orlando and Orange County,
Florida has proposed a light rail system that would relieve traffic
congestion, particularly in the downtown areas and on the Interstate during
peak traffic hours. It has worked in several other cities, but would only
work if properly advertised and actually *used*. If you are in a city in
which automobiles have traditionally been the primary means of
transportation, convincing the population that mass transit is for them can
be very difficult. People, by their very nature, enjoy the freedom and
comfort allowed by an automobile, and have to be shown cost, time, and long
term benefits before considering a change. For later discussion, please
consider New York City, where far less than half of the population own
automobiles (and like it that way!).
- With regard to the subject heading of your post: Density problems are
not necessarily due to poor zoning. In fact, in more cases than not,
transportation design is the culprit (hence this discussion). Attractors
such as businesses, etc, are surely going to increase traffic flows, as
will virtually any structure. You have to do a cost/benefit analysis with
this one, and consider the direction your city wants to move towards in
terms of density and sprawl patterns. Many people would prefer a higher
density to a large sprawl (that's a completely new can of worms, though).
- Also re:poor zoning: How would you stop traffic congestion through
zoning techniques, while still allowing your city to grow to it's
potential? I would like input on that one, as it is of interest to hear
new ideas. Thanks!
Craig.
My e-mail is incorrect, please address all replies to this newsgroup.
Herc Wad
Craig Sweet wrote:
>If the city was not in need of
>mass transit, why was it implemented?
I see you may not be familiar with Los Angeles County transit. There are 88
cities in the county, and there are about 46 transit systems. How many of those
46 transit systems are actually useful? You can count them on both hands.
Many small cities will start up a transit system, which is generally a quarter
fare bus that goes around in a circle once an hour. These routes are designed
it seems for senior citizens to get around on, and yet very few of them even
use the systems. The routes will often go to a trailer park, senior center,
hospital, and of course, City Hall.
Why so many agencies? Mainly because of Proposition A, a sales tax that was
passed for public transit. Cities are entitled to their share of the funding,
and they normally sink it into their system. The problem with this is that so
many cities will put up a poor excuse of a transit system.
L.A. County transit agencies can be broken up into two categories: Pre-Prop A
(before 1980) and Post-Prop A (after 1980). Pre-Prop A systems have been around
much longer and have do very well. These are systems like what Culver City,
Montebello, and [the most popular local carrier] Santa Monica operate. Most of
these have been operating since the 1920's, though. Then, there are the
Post-Prop A systems, like Santa Fe Springs and Cudahy. They have very low
riders.
The LACMTA was actually thinking about enforcing performance standards (making
the systems have a certain number of passengers per hour to keep operating),
but not much has become of it.
SoCalTIP, Southern California's Comprehensive Transportation Information Page:
<http://socaltip.lerctr.org>
George Conklin
In article <01bd0859$d73f3fc0$bef4a0cd@default>,
Craig <tellyo...@phoenixat.com> wrote:
>Can't you, as an Urban Planner (assumption), see the benefits that mass
>transit can bring to a city (or region for that matter). Please see my
>replies below. I would welcome a discussion on this matter.
>
>> I live in a town where mass transit (busses) is a failure - thank
>> goodness. An economic failure, because not enough people use mt to pay
>> for itself.
>
>Was this not researched thoroughly by your Planning Dept. to determine
>mass transit, why was it implemented?
>
>> to make it have a positive cost-benefit ratio.
>
>See above comment. From the standpoint that mass transit *is* needed for
>your city (why else start it?), I can see the possibility that routes were
>not defined in such a way that the public was aware of the opportunities,
>adequate advertising may not have been directed towards the effort, routes
>may not have been those commonly utilized by motorists, etc, etc, etc. Any
>possibilities there?
>
>> A lot of empty / under
>> utilized busses occupy traffic lanes, and STOP in them and block them and
>
>> otherwise interfere with car movement.
>
>Mass transit did not decrease ADT flows in your city, so of course the
>busses acted to further decrease LOS on the roadways. Had the transit been
>utilized by the citizens, there would have been less traffic on the streets
>to begin with.
Mass transit has caused traffic problems. To keep the
mass transit systems going, private cars can no longer pick
up people and take them where they want to go, which was
common before the anti-jitney laws took hold. Mass transit
thus caused the problem. It is not the solution.
Colin R. Leech
Robert Coté (tech...@west.net) wrote:
> Craig Sweet wrote:
> -Robert Coté wrote:
>
> -> Here's an interesting proposition, pick any sucessful, pick the most
> -> sucessful, public transit system in the nation and see if any private
> -> corporation would buy the entire organization for a dollar, no strings
> -> attached. Now add one string, they must continue to provide transit,
> -> watch the bidders melt away. Great assets that are put to poor uses.
>
> -Or, lets try this one...pick any city street system, county road system, or
> -state highway system and ask any private company to maintain the system with
> -gas tax funds only, no general fund money. Any takers?
>
> Even though your offer is nowhere near equivilant, I'll still take the
> Mass Turnpike and laugh all the way to the bank. Now admit you are
> wrong and let's move on.
I'll take your offer, because it isn't equivalent at all. I'll be quite
happy to cherry-pick certain subway lines in certain cities, and
Transitway route 95 here in Ottawa, leaving behind all the rest of the
routes. Oh, you want me to take the whole system? In that case, you'll
have to take a lot of roads that feed the Mass Pike as well. Still
interested?
--
#### |\^/| Colin R. Leech ag414 or crl...@freenet.carleton.ca
#### _|\| |/|_ Civil engineer by training, transport planner by choice.
#### > < Opinions are my own. You may consider them shareware.
#### >_./|\._< "If you can't return a favour, pass it on." - A.L. Brown
Dave Mooney
I think it would be really cool if they could come up with some
sort of "capsule" that I could catch just outside my house, that
will take me anywhere in town, where somebody else does the driving,
and that costs me less than two bucks a trip. Wouldn't that be cool?
I'd be able to read a book while I'm travelling, or peoplewatch,
or daydream, and not have to worry about all the idiot drivers on the
road. Let me know when your "capsule" lets me do that.
dave
--
David Mooney | "I can't command a ship from inside an aquarium!"
craig sweet
Ah yes...a toll road, one that is designed to recover the true cost of maintaining
the road! Now, lets apply the amount of Federal Subsidises to highways to any
transit system...you can pick the transit system....you can see where I'm going
with this.
Tina or Adam Szymczak wrote:
> On 13-Dec-97 23:17:12, Robert Coté (tech...@west.net) wrote:
> > Craig Sweet wrote:
>
> > -Robert Coté wrote:
>
> > -> Here's an interesting proposition, pick any sucessful, pick the most
> > -> sucessful, public transit system in the nation and see if any private
> > -> corporation would buy the entire organization for a dollar, no strings
> > -> attached. Now add one string, they must continue to provide transit,
> > -> watch the bidders melt away. Great assets that are put to poor uses.
>
> > -Or, lets try this one...pick any city street system, county road system, or
> > -state highway system and ask any private company to maintain the system with
> > -gas tax funds only, no general fund money. Any takers?
>
> > Even though your offer is nowhere near equivilant, I'll still take the
> > Mass Turnpike and laugh all the way to the bank. Now admit you are
> > wrong and let's move on.
>
> But you just can't one highway - Craig asked about picking a system not a
> single road. If you are taking the Mass Turnpike, then you have to take
> all of the higways that the state maintains and owns. I'd be laughing all
> the to the bank if I was able to buy only the profitable public transit
> lines.
>
> --
> Adam Szymczak Team AMIGA
>
> The Wastebasket Newsletter - http://home.ican.net/~szymczak
> --
> I don't have an attitude, babe--I AM an attitude
ad...@interlog.com
Dave Mooney wrote:
Gosh. Golly. Gee whiz.
555...@mail.teclink.net
I posted the original thread, and someone brought up some points that I
tried to respond to, but got cut off the net. I didn't save anything,
and was not able to get back on til today and now the original response
has disappeared, and I don't remember all the points that I was to
respond to, so, I will try to respond as best as I can, and hope you will
repost or reply.
I am not a planner, but have been on a planning commission for about 12
years, about half of which I was chairman. We have a transportation
planner on our commission, an architect, an engineer, a landscape
architect, a lawyer, a wildlife and fisheries officer, and a
retired contractor. I am one of the above. I have lived in a city of
one million, one of 250,000 and the present one is an 8,000 person
bedroom community to a 250,000 city. I have been exposed to a couple of
city planning courses, and attended various seminars, but admit I am not
a city planner.
Our present bedroom community had under 3,000 when I first got
appoionted to the planning commission by a very planning conscious mayor.
We learned from our neighboring towns how lack of sign ordinances can
hurt a town. We have tried to learn from the mistakes of big cities.
One of the things we are trying to do is avoid high density. This seems
to bring on big city problems such as traffic and the mass transit issue.
Right now we have been able to keep density down by limiting building
heights to 35 feet and keeping commercial areas small and residential
areas low density by zoning. We do not use FAR, yet. We have a
"historic" district, an architectural review commission, and so far have
kept the image of the quaint ole small town. The community is now one of
the most affluent in our state, and apparently we have a reputation of
strict zoning principles that attracts people of that value that.
Travel time to the "big city" is under a half hour by interstate in our
"capsules". We are not yet self sufficient (being a bedroom community
that is dependent on the "big city"), but have steadily seen our
commercial area increase revenue and tax base.
We would appreciate any advice you might have for us at this point,
before it is too late.
This article was posted from <A HREF="http://www.slurp.net/">Slurp Net</A>.
George Conklin
Well, the city planners in Durham, NC are pushing density
at all costs. They have decided that high density living is
the solution to all problems.
But they are wrong. Density does bring with it a lot of
problems, like increases costs. A study done in a schoarly
journal not too long ago showed that quite nicely.
Density costs money in cities.
Urban Studies published an article which is summarized
in Sociofile.
Here are the conclusions:
Generally, all measures increase with both size and density,
which ,in turn, is a function of size:
1. cost-of-living
2. money income
3. rent cost
4. transport cost
5. environment
6. crime
7. health and social problems
So, you earn more, but it costs a lot more too. In a
global economy, the extra costs of density are
non-competitive.
That goes with the following finding:
Depending on cities are planned, they can be expensive or
cheap to build and maintain. In general, the higher the
density of the city, the higher the initital capital costs
and running costs. (M.A. Jones, pp. 32-36 in Austrialian
and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 1973).
In relation to trains, Jones notes, "British studies have
shown that in a new city of 250,000, a rail system (without
rolling stock) would cost about twice as much to construct
as the entire main road system."
It would have been nice if authors had continued the
scholarly literature on urban size or optimal city size, but
all the horrid things suburbs were supposed to do to people
were so conclusively disproved by the mid 1970s that
scholars moved on to other areas, leaving the ideology open
to popularizers and those who never open a scholarly book.
From: Abhay Thatte <arth...@u.washington.edu>
To: hen...@nina.pagesz.net
Subject: Costs of Density
Author: Ladd-Helen-F.
Title: Population growth, density and the costs of providing public
services (Special Issue: Problems of Urban Agglomeration, 1961-
91).
Source: Urban-Studies. April, 1992. v29(n2). p273(23).
Copyright: COPYRIGHT Urban Studies (UK) 1992
Illustration: table. graph.
Abstract: Recent policy interest in managing local population growth has
drawn attention to the fiscal pressures that population growth
imposes on local governments. This paper uses 1985 data for
247 large county areas to determine the separate impacts on
local gov ernment spending of two dimensions of residential
development patterns, the rapidity of popul ation growth and
the intensity land use as measured by gross residential
densities. Based on a regression model that controls for other
determinants of per capita spending, this study provides carefu
l estimates of the nonlinear impacts of population growth and
population density on three types of local government
spending: current account spending, capital outlays and
spending on public safety. The study balances the engineering
and planning view that greater population density lowers the
costs of providing public services by documenting a U-shaped
relationship between spending and density; except in sparsely
populated areas, higher density typically increases public
sector spending. In addition, the results suggest that rapid
population growth imposes fiscal burdens on established
residents in the form of lower service levels.
Therefore, if you want to avoid cost problems, avoid high
density.
Bob Nelson
Adam Weiss wrote in message <349214...@erols.com>...
>Interesting issue here. Could the American addiction to the automobile
>be a function of capitalism and a contempt for anything public (and
>hence communist)?
It's unlikely that the "public" aspect of public transportation is what
people find distasteful about using transit. If you believe that people have
contempt for public services, try suggesting that the public school system
be replaced entirely by private education.
...or suggest that our socialized highway system be replaced by a capitalist
system of highways, complete with the highway owners charging the users
whatever they can get. I doubt it would go over well -- Americans feel that
they somehow have a "right" to use highways without payment for their use.
In that regard, so-called "public" transit is actually more "capitalist"
than highways. At least the users pay *something* for their ride -- although
the fixed-cost component of transit is entirely socialized. In contrast,
highway users *do* pay for much of the fixed-costs of the highways (i.e.,
the vehicles), but nothing toward the actual use of the roads.
> You can't think of cars in terms of how they will pay
>for themselves. A car is a posession; more than that, it's an
>investment (a very bad one, actually, since it persistenly has negative
>dividends and can never be sold for more than it was bought for).
That's not a good definition of "investment". It's like saying that food is
a bad investment because once it's digested, it can't be resold. Their are
other returns on investments besides resale value. Car ownership *is* a good
investment when one considers the costs of total reliance on transit.
> But
>Americans want something that they own. It's much more comfortable for
>many Americans to go everywhere in their own car and to own their own
>home. Riding public transit is akin to (gasp) living in a public
>housing project.
>
>But the fact that most Americans think that way doesn't mean that
>everyone does. Call me a commie but I think that public transit is a
>necessity to every city. I've said it before and I'll say it again --
>people with cars should be thankful for public transit (especially
>trains) since without them they'd spend even more time in traffic jams.
This is making the incorrect assumption that transit eases traffic
congestion. As I pointed out in another thread, if transit reduces
congestion, then so must additional highway construction. But we know from
experience that new highways do *not* decrease congestion. Our socialist
system of free highways will remain congested regardless of how additional
capacity is created.
BN
K.C. Jackson
In <678nla$c...@examiner.concentric.net> "Bob Nelson"
<tw...@ohio-state.com> writes:
>
>In that regard, so-called "public" transit is actually more
>"capitalist" than highways. At least the users pay *something* for
>their ride -- although the fixed-cost component of transit is entirely
>socialized. In contrast, highway users *do* pay for much of the
>fixed-costs of the highways (i.e., the vehicles), but nothing toward
>the actual use of the roads.
Huh? Does the phrase "fuel tax" ring a bell? Everybody pays it,
including bus companies and transit authorities. Fuel tax pays for
construction and maintenance of every road in the US, including toll
roads.
APPSINC
> I have lived in a city of
>one million, one of 250,000 and the present one is an 8,000 person
>bedroom community to a 250,000 city. I have been exposed to a couple of
>city planning courses, and attended various seminars, but admit I am not
>a city planner.
>
>Our present bedroom community had under 3,000 when I first got
>appoionted to the planning commission by a very planning conscious mayor.
>
>We learned from our neighboring towns how lack of sign ordinances can
>hurt a town. We have tried to learn from the mistakes of big cities.
>
>One of the things we are trying to do is avoid high density. This seems
>to bring on big city problems such as traffic and the mass transit issue.
How about allowing denser development around your commercial center and
limiting density in the residential areas surrounding? Some communities create
a transitional zone surrounding the commerical core that allows multi-family
housing and other uses that are too intense for single-family neighborhoods.
(Note that I am not refering to high rise housing - but to garden apartments,
duplexes or townhouses). In many communities like your, there is a certain
demand for this type of housing among young professionals who are not yet ready
for a whole house and among "empty-nesters" who can no longer maintain their
home (or don't want to or would like to free up some of the money they have
tied up in their house) but would like to stay in the community. Keeping this
development close to the village center minimizes the demand for public
transportation because those who would be most likely to use it (people living
in multi-family housing) would already be within walking distance of the center
of town. You should, of course, make sure that your z.o. requires sufficient
parking for such development.
> Right now we have been able to keep density down by limiting building
>heights to 35 feet and keeping commercial areas small and residential
>areas low density by zoning. We do not use FAR, yet. We have a
>"historic" district, an architectural review commission, and so far have
>kept the image of the quaint ole small town. The community is now one of
>the most affluent in our state, and apparently we have a reputation of
>strict zoning principles that attracts people of that value that.
It is interesting that it takes "strict zoning principles" to enforce the very
type of housing that some people on this board would argue that "everyone
wants". If this were the case, why would ANY zoning principles be required???
>
>Travel time to the "big city" is under a half hour by interstate in our
>"capsules". We are not yet self sufficient (being a bedroom community
>that is dependent on the "big city"), but have steadily seen our
>commercial area increase revenue and tax base.
How is your commerical area revenue and tax base increasing if you have limited
the size and density of your commercial area? (this is not a challenge - just a
question)
>
>We would appreciate any advice you might have for us at this point,
>before it is too late.
>
- Sarah
Bob Nelson
K.C. Jackson wrote in message <6792j9$h...@sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com>...
This is a semantic game. Highway users "pay" for transit, too -- and transit
users, like all taxpayers, "pay" for highways. A fuel tax is a surcharge on
fuel purchases which is thrown into the big government piggy bank; i.e.,
there is no association between this tax and *when* and *where* people
drive -- it only affects the *overall* level of driving.
The use of highway *space* is free on most roads. There are only so many
"slots" available. And since these slots are given away for free, there's a
chronic shortage of them -- so motorists have to queue. In that regard, like
I said, motorists pay nothing toward the use of the roads.
BN
George Conklin
In article <1297.290T2...@ican.net>,
Tina Szymczak <szym...@ican.net> wrote:
>On 16-Dec-97 23:55:09, 555555e (555...@mail.teclink.net) wrote:
>
>> One of the things we are trying to do is avoid high density. This seems
>> to bring on big city problems such as traffic and the mass transit issue.
>> heights to 35 feet and keeping commercial areas small and residential
>> areas low density by zoning. We do not use FAR, yet. We have a
>> "historic" district, an architectural review commission, and so far have
>> kept the image of the quaint ole small town. The community is now one of
>> the most affluent in our state, and apparently we have a reputation of
>> strict zoning principles that attracts people of that value that.
>
>promotes single-detached dwellings. You don't want apartment buildings or
>semi-detached or row dwellings - afterall we all know what kind of people
>those dwellings attract.
>
>By the way, you refer to the "big city" - what do you define that as?
>
>--
>Adam Szymczak Team AMIGA
Adam, those single-family houses I keep citing cost less
than apartments and don't impose on the public the penalty
of density.
Density costs money:
KKossler
555...@mail.teclink.net wrote:
=One of the things we are trying to do is avoid high density. This seems
=to bring on big city problems such as traffic and the mass transit issue.
Interesting. By deliberately keeping densities low, mass transit would not be
needed, and cannot be justified in such a situation. You have kept people from
wasting tax money on a service they will not need. Other key points are that
this town is affluent, so transit does not need to be provided for those
perfectly content to pay for a car and all its freedom.
Now, for any transit apologists, riddle me this:
Do you personally feel that transit should run in this area, knowing ahead of
time that it will fail miserably?
~Kirby~
=Quote of the week=
"Bureaucrats are the only people in the world who can say absolutely nothing
and mean it."-James H. Boren
KKossler
"Bob Nelson" <tw...@ohio-state.com> wrote:
=Adam Weiss wrote in message <349214...@erols.com>...
=>Interesting issue here. Could the American addiction to the automobile
=>be a function of capitalism and a contempt for anything public (and
=>hence communist)?
=It's unlikely that the "public" aspect of public transportation is what
=people find distasteful about using transit.
It's that public transportation is slow, dirty, and riders are normally human
garbage. (I should say, the human garbage only is a phenomenon of urban areas.
In suburban areas, you don't have that problem since nobody uses transit in the
suburbs.)
= If you believe that people have
=contempt for public services, try suggesting that the public school system
=be replaced entirely by private education.
I'm all for that. Anything to remove the stranglehold of power from bureaucrats
and organized labor. They are the ones who think that by throwing more money at
the problem, it will go away. They must have taken a page out of the transit
professionals' book.
=...or suggest that our socialized highway system be replaced by a capitalist
=system of highways, complete with the highway owners charging the users
=whatever they can get.
But...a private agency can keep costs down. They would not have to rely on
unionized labor like the government does now (all California highway
maintenance work must be contracted out to union shop firms).
= I doubt it would go over well -- Americans feel that
=they somehow have a "right" to use highways without payment for their use.
That is true. That is my ideology above. But, being a traffic consultant, I
also know that a large majority of the public do not want to pay tolls, user
fees, etc. It will never go over. Despite libertarian viewpoints of everyone
paying their own way, most people in the US would not want to fork over cash
each time they use a highway. Libertarian views may be right (or wrong), but
it's merely an ideological splinter still dwarfed by the mainstream.
=In that regard, so-called "public" transit is actually more "capitalist"
=than highways.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
= At least the users pay *something* for their ride -- although
=the fixed-cost component of transit is entirely socialized. In contrast,
=highway users *do* pay for much of the fixed-costs of the highways (i.e.,
=the vehicles), but nothing toward the actual use of the roads.
So, highway users are paying for their costs, but they are not paying fees?
Transit users pay a fare, yet they can't even pay back half of their costs? You
have just admitted that highways can pay for themselves without needing to pay
a fare.
Please don't justify that by making transit use free of charge, costs will be
paid.
This is akin to where you would go to the movies and pay $1 for a movie ticket.
The rest of the costs are paid for by the movie studios. Does this mean that
moviemaking is cheaper? For the moviegoer it is, but the costs are largely paid
for on the studio's dole. Also, a movie theather has a given number of seats
for the people, just like public transit. Because the $1 is a blanket loss, do
you think selling the maximum number of tickets will pay for the cost of the
movie? No siree.
=> You can't think of cars in terms of how they will pay
=>for themselves. A car is a posession; more than that, it's an
=>investment (a very bad one, actually, since it persistenly has negative
=>dividends and can never be sold for more than it was bought for).
Simple economics. You wouldn't pay full price for a half-eaten sandwich. Why
should you pay full price for a used car?
=That's not a good definition of "investment". It's like saying that food is
=a bad investment because once it's digested, it can't be resold.
No, food is an investment, but the return is energy and nourishment. It's not
just tangible cost.
= Their are
=other returns on investments besides resale value. Car ownership *is* a good
=investment when one considers the costs of total reliance on transit.
Ding.
=> But
=>Americans want something that they own.
Market research has solidly proven this.
= It's much more comfortable for
=>many Americans to go everywhere in their own car and to own their own
=>home. Riding public transit is akin to (gasp) living in a public
=>housing project.
Trying to refrain from bombastic prose, public transportation riders deserve
not the rest of the public's tax money, but their pity for not being fortunate
enough to own a car.
=>But the fact that most Americans think that way doesn't mean that
=>everyone does. Call me a commie but I think that public transit is a
=>necessity to every city. I've said it before and I'll say it again --
=>people with cars should be thankful for public transit (especially
=>trains) since without them they'd spend even more time in traffic jams.
Public transit has not improved my commute time any. I can thank the government
for taking away money from me before I get my hands on it and use it to run
empty buses to make some lefties and urban planners happy.
How is it supposed to make my commute time? I travel on freeways. Very few San
Diego County buses do. For those that do, it takes at least 3 times as long to
go anywhere than by car. There's the Coaster, but I would get to my transfer
destination by the time I would get to work in my car. And it is supposed to
have improved congestion? Why. Most San Diego bus riders are poor. They don't
own cars in the first place, and I am supposed to think about the potential of
them driving? Nonsense.
=This is making the incorrect assumption that transit eases traffic
=congestion.
It doesn't, we all know that.
= As I pointed out in another thread, if transit reduces
=congestion, then so must additional highway construction.
Highway construction initially eases traffic congestion, but it lures more
people to use the freeways because of the faster commute. You actually see
improvement with more highways.
Public transit, you can make things faster or cheaper, but freedom is something
people would sit in their cars for hours in gridlock to keep. Market research
on cars has also proven this.
So has a San Diego MTDB user survey.
= But we know from
=experience that new highways do *not* decrease congestion. Our socialist
=system of free highways will remain congested regardless of how additional
=capacity is created.
And transit is supposed to be the savior? I don't think so.
r...@inetworld.net
On 17 Dec 1997 06:52:33 -0500, hen...@nina.pagesz.net (George Conklin)
wrote:
"Initial costs" have nothing to do with long-range costs, George.
Show us a study that discusses that.
> In relation to trains, Jones notes, "British studies have
>shown that in a new city of 250,000, a rail system (without
>rolling stock) would cost about twice as much to construct
>as the entire main road system."
And as I've pointed out over and over in response to this bullshit
quote, the guy is talking about a hypothetical "new city". Show us
what the cost is in an existing city.
>
> It would have been nice if authors had continued the
>scholarly literature on urban size or optimal city size, but
>all the horrid things suburbs were supposed to do to people
>were so conclusively disproved by the mid 1970s that
>scholars moved on to other areas, leaving the ideology open
>to popularizers and those who never open a scholarly book.
Yeah, right. In fact, they were so busy doing the politically correct
thing of dumping on the cities while living in the burbs, they
couldn't bring themselves to offend their neighbors by taking a
reasonable look at the problems the burbs bring to society. Sociology
always was nothing but a last bastion for academic whores.
>From: Abhay Thatte <arth...@u.washington.edu>
Oh, now here's a source. A wannabe developer.
>Abstract: Recent policy interest in managing local population growth has
> drawn attention to the fiscal pressures that population growth
> imposes on local governments. This paper uses 1985 data
What? Couldn't find anything newer?
for 247 large county areas to determine the separate impacts on
> local gov ernment spending of two dimensions of residential
> development patterns, the rapidity of population growth and
> the intensity land use as measured by gross residential
> densities. Based on a regression model that controls for other
> determinants of per capita spending, this study provides carefu
> l estimates of the nonlinear impacts of population growth and
> population density on three types of local government
> spending: current account spending, capital outlays and
> spending on public safety. The study balances the engineering
> and planning view that greater population density lowers the
> costs of providing public services by documenting a U-shaped
> relationship between spending and density; except in sparsely
> populated areas, higher density typically increases public
> sector spending. In addition, the results suggest that rapid
> population growth imposes fiscal burdens on established
> residents in the form of lower service levels.
Oh good. Just another idiot who believes that you can quantify human
behavior. The sad part of all this, George, is that you're willing to
buy into this behaviorist crap just because it suits your ideology.
Jesus Christ; exactly when did you leave you academic integrity
behind?
> Therefore, if you want to avoid cost problems, avoid high
>density.
Odd; last time I looked, the condos around golf courses were very
dense and yet they don't have much crime. How exactly do you explain
this, George?
=Bob
Who knows what miracle tomorrow may bring?
Amos
KKossler <kkos...@aol.com> wrote in article
> Interesting. By deliberately keeping densities low, mass transit would
not be
> needed, and cannot be justified in such a situation. You have kept people
from
> wasting tax money on a service they will not need. Other key points are
that
> this town is affluent, so transit does not need to be provided for those
> perfectly content to pay for a car and all its freedom.
>
> Now, for any transit apologists, riddle me this:
> Do you personally feel that transit should run in this area, knowing
ahead of
> time that it will fail miserably?
It's great that the particular community in question has managed to
maintain low density and high tax revenue. The original post also noted
that this was a "bedroom community" still somewhat dependent on the central
city. Assuming that the suburbs are growing, what happens when surrounding
bedroom communities grow at a much faster rate, thus increasing the traffic
between suburbs and city? Suddenly the half-hour commute by car becomes an
hour. Mass transit becomes a serious issue at that point regardless of the
particular zoning ordinances in this town.
I am not arguing for immediate tax increases and transit building, but this
community is not an island unto itself and should work together with the
surrounding municipalities to keep development in check. Otherwise traffic
will increase dramatically and the only "freedom" for residents will be the
freedom to be stuck in traffic.
George Conklin
In article <3498aff8...@news.inetworld.net>, <r...@inetworld.net> wrote:
>On 17 Dec 1997 06:52:33 -0500, hen...@nina.pagesz.net (George Conklin)
>wrote:
>
>
>> In relation to trains, Jones notes, "British studies have
>>shown that in a new city of 250,000, a rail system (without
>>rolling stock) would cost about twice as much to construct
>>as the entire main road system."
>
>And as I've pointed out over and over in response to this bullshit
>quote, the guy is talking about a hypothetical "new city". Show us
>what the cost is in an existing city.
That is published below, but you dismiss that with your
usual dishonest statements of 'something newer.' When the
new data comes out, you ignore it. Then you come back with
the usual propaganda yet once again.
>
>>Abstract: Recent policy interest in managing local population growth has
>> drawn attention to the fiscal pressures that population growth
>> imposes on local governments. This paper uses 1985 data
>
>What? Couldn't find anything newer?
1985 is quite new. But your constant bleatings that
everything changed since yesterday is your usual pitiful,
said and impotent whine.
> for 247 large county areas to determine the separate impacts on
>> local gov ernment spending of two dimensions of residential
>> development patterns, the rapidity of population growth and
>> the intensity land use as measured by gross residential
>> densities. Based on a regression model that controls for other
>> determinants of per capita spending, this study provides carefu
>> l estimates of the nonlinear impacts of population growth and
>> population density on three types of local government
>> spending: current account spending, capital outlays and
>> spending on public safety. The study balances the engineering
>> and planning view that greater population density lowers the
>> costs of providing public services by documenting a U-shaped
>> relationship between spending and density; except in sparsely
>> populated areas, higher density typically increases public
>> sector spending. In addition, the results suggest that rapid
>> population growth imposes fiscal burdens on established
>> residents in the form of lower service levels.
>
>Oh good. Just another idiot who believes that you can quantify human
>behavior.
Taxes are quantified in dollars. Only an urban planner
can't see that. You are one said sack.
George Conklin
In article <01bd0b85$348306c0$13182ccf@default>,
Amos <apa...@paonline.com> wrote:
>
>
>It's great that the particular community in question has managed to
>maintain low density and high tax revenue.
It is the normal pattern:
Residential Development Engine of Economic Growth
Dr. Michael Walden, economist a N. C. State University,
has studied the role of housing in economic development.
Since 1960 that debate has been shaped by city planners and
anti-growth proponents who argue that residential
development does not pay for itself, considering water,
schools and so forth.
"These studies are seriously flawed," Dr. Walden said in
a recent interview. "There is no question that the typical
study vastly underestimates the tax revenues generated by
residential development. Typically they look only at
property tax revenues from the new residences, and if that's
all you look at, you'll always wind up with the same
conclusion.."
Walden continues:
"In the real world, that's a lot more to the story than
just property taxes. You have to look at all the economic
impacts associated with home building. The material you by,
the jobs you create, the dollars the workers spend in local
taxes, all of it.... The typical study does not do this."
For every 100 houses built, the result is $14.3 million
in new regional income, 224 new jobs, and $488,000 in new
local taxes. In 1996 9,347 new hmes were built in Wake,
Durham and Orange Counties (North Carolina, USA). This
translates into $1.34 billion in income, 20,937 jobs, and
$31.7 and $31.7 million in new taxes.
(And for those of you into simple logic, the urban planner
view that people don't pay for themselves is something that
they don't apply to urban growth before 1960, as if the laws
of economics only applied to new areas but not to houses
with porches built in the 1920s.)
"We have heard for years that residential development
does not pay for itself. And yet we see government has
expanded the level of public services while either holding
the line or actually reducing taxes. Somehow it just does
not add up."
Summarized from the News and Observer, 1 November 1997.
Bob Nelson
KKossler wrote in message <19971218021...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
>"Bob Nelson" <tw...@ohio-state.com> wrote:
>= I doubt it would go over well -- Americans feel that
>=they somehow have a "right" to use highways without payment for their use.
>
>That is true. That is my ideology above. But, being a traffic consultant, I
>also know that a large majority of the public do not want to pay tolls,
user
>fees, etc. It will never go over. Despite libertarian viewpoints of
everyone
>paying their own way, most people in the US would not want to fork over
cash
>each time they use a highway. Libertarian views may be right (or wrong),
but
>it's merely an ideological splinter still dwarfed by the mainstream.
True, people don't want to pay for highways. In fact, they (rationally)
don't want to pay for *anything* -- they want something for nothing. But
with private ownership, the supplier also wants something for nothing. The
compromise is an agreed-upon term of exchange.
Because public highways have no "owner", the check on "something for
nothing" is missing, and the consumers end up paying nothing -- and also
*receiving* nothing (other than wasting time and money in traffic jams). If
your solution to highway problems is "no tolls" because it's what people
"want", then you may as well advocate free food too.
>= At least the users pay *something* for their ride -- although
>=the fixed-cost component of transit is entirely socialized. In contrast,
>=highway users *do* pay for much of the fixed-costs of the highways (i.e.,
>=the vehicles), but nothing toward the actual use of the roads.
>
>So, highway users are paying for their costs, but they are not paying fees?
>Transit users pay a fare, yet they can't even pay back half of their costs?
You
>have just admitted that highways can pay for themselves without needing to
pay
>a fare.
Read it again. Highway users pay for none of the incremental costs of road
use, so there's zero incentives regarding when and where they should
drive -- other than the waits in the inevitable traffic jams that result
from this policy. Transit users *do* pay for the incremental costs of their
ride, so their decisions will be more efficient. This is especially true in
cities like DC, where charges are based on time-of-day and distance
travelled.
Only a socialist highway system would be designed so that peak-hour users of
metro-area highways pay the same amount as motorists driving on empty
highways in Montana.
>Trying to refrain from bombastic prose, public transportation riders
deserve
>not the rest of the public's tax money, but their pity for not being
fortunate
>enough to own a car.
Yep, like all those commuter-rail users who don't own cars, right? Or all
those enormous parking facilities at transit stations in the Bay Area, DC,
etc. that are presumably filled up by 7AM by people who aren't fortunate
enough to own a car, right?
>Public transit has not improved my commute time any. I can thank the
government
>for taking away money from me before I get my hands on it and use it to run
>empty buses to make some lefties and urban planners happy.
This is fairly typical of what's wrong with our quasi-socialist government.
"Government program X hasn't improved my life, so scrap it. But Government
program Y helps me, so let's tax everyone else for it." Or are you also in
favor of eliminating public highways?
For that matter, how woud you feel about *private* transit?
BN
KKossler
"Bob Nelson" <tw...@ohio-state.com> wrote:
=KKossler wrote in message =<19971218021...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
=>"Bob Nelson" <tw...@ohio-state.com> wrote:
=>= I doubt it would go over well -- Americans feel that
=>=they somehow have a "right" to use highways without payment for their use.
=>
=>That is true. That is my ideology above. But, being a traffic consultant, I
=>also know that a large majority of the public do not want to pay tolls,
=user
=>fees, etc. It will never go over. Despite libertarian viewpoints of
=everyone
=>paying their own way, most people in the US would not want to fork over
=cash
=>each time they use a highway. Libertarian views may be right (or wrong),
=but
=>it's merely an ideological splinter still dwarfed by the mainstream.
=True, people don't want to pay for highways. In fact, they (rationally)
=don't want to pay for *anything* -- they want something for nothing. But
=with private ownership, the supplier also wants something for nothing. The
=compromise is an agreed-upon term of exchange.
=Because public highways have no "owner", the check on "something for
=nothing" is missing, and the consumers end up paying nothing -- and also
=*receiving* nothing (other than wasting time and money in traffic jams). If
=your solution to highway problems is "no tolls" because it's what people
="want", then you may as well advocate free food too.
Think about traffic congestion in terms of tolls. There is the traditional
method of toll collection, where cash in handed over for use. You then have the
delay of people fumbling for cash and counting the cash before entry. The best
place to place a tollbooth is at the onramp of a highway. But, backing up a
queue for entry would subsequently back up streets. Onramps with sharp curves
were not designed for effective stopping and starting. You can place them at
the exits, but highway traffic would back up. Placing them on the highways is
out of the question.
Or you can go with the ultra-modern collection systems where a chip with
billing information is attached to the car, and information is beamed into a
computer with data catching systems on the freeways. I suppose you think
hunking down billions of dollars to make sure highway users pay a fare is
right, but you'll just whine about another "auto subsidy". The problem is the
over-reliance on the computer user fee collection equipment, and the technology
is still embryonic. It will get really complicated if you get ridesharing
incentives into this. Should HOV 2+ cars get a discount over SOVs? If so, what
would be the best computerized way to count for extra bodies in the car? If
not, what's the incentive to pay the same for a car with 1 passenger and a car
with 4? Computerized tollways are in effect, and they have been largely losers.
The California 91 Freeway HOT lane comes to mind.
=>= At least the users pay *something* for their ride -- although
=>=the fixed-cost component of transit is entirely socialized. In contrast,
=>=highway users *do* pay for much of the fixed-costs of the highways (i.e.,
=>=the vehicles), but nothing toward the actual use of the roads.
=>
=>So, highway users are paying for their costs, but they are not paying fees?
==>Transit users pay a fare, yet they can't even pay back half of their costs?
=You
=>have just admitted that highways can pay for themselves without needing to
=pay
=>a fare.
=Read it again. Highway users pay for none of the incremental costs of road
=use, so there's zero incentives regarding when and where they should
=drive -- other than the waits in the inevitable traffic jams that result
=from this policy. Transit users *do* pay for the incremental costs of their
=ride, so their decisions will be more efficient.
In other words, you want highways to have an admission fee, when it is paying
for the fixed costs just fine through taxing.
=This is especially true in
=cities like DC, where charges are based on time-of-day and distance
=travelled.
=Only a socialist highway system would be designed so that peak-hour users of
=metro-area highways pay the same amount as motorists driving on empty
=highways in Montana.
So only peak hour users of metropolitan areas should pay, while the Montana
highways should go free? If its socialism we're talking about, the folks in
Montana deserve to be shafted equally as those in metro areas.
=>Trying to refrain from bombastic prose, public transportation riders
=deserve
=>not the rest of the public's tax money, but their pity for not being
=fortunate
=>enough to own a car.
=Yep, like all those commuter-rail users who don't own cars, right? Or all
=those enormous parking facilities at transit stations in the Bay Area, DC,
=etc. that are presumably filled up by 7AM by people who aren't fortunate
=enough to own a car, right?
If those people have cars and want to travel fast, and public transportation
can do it (which is rare, if not impossible), transit agencies should milk
those passengers like a Holstein.
Two examples. Whoopee. Make a list of successes. It's a short list, so it
shouldn't be too tough. For everything not on there, it is a failure.
Keep in mind that transit agencies seek riders for riders sake, with costs
being no object. Transit works much like a publication. A publication sells
subscriptions at prices close to cost or below it, so they could get
advertising revenue by boasting a high circulation rate. That's the way transit
works, except it's with riders and they are seeking revenue from big
government. The only difference is that a publication has to watch their bottom
line, while transit can be as showy as it wants.
=>Public transit has not improved my commute time any. I can thank the
=government
=>for taking away money from me before I get my hands on it and use it to run
=>empty buses to make some lefties and urban planners happy.
=This is fairly typical of what's wrong with our quasi-socialist government.
="Government program X hasn't improved my life, so scrap it. But Government
=program Y helps me, so let's tax everyone else for it." Or are you also in
=favor of eliminating public highways?
It's not my life. It's 95% of Americans' lives! I'll cut the number down for
SOV users. 72%. Highways help not just drivers, but it is a major component for
transportation of goods. Transit can only benefit passengers, but highways
benefit both cars and manufacturers and suppliers.
=For that matter, how woud you feel about *private* transit?
I urge any private company to step up to the plate.
Reality check: transit does not work, regardless of who provides it. The
private sector will not go into providing transit because the fixed costs are
too high, and the farebox is the only place where costs can be made up. That is
why transit will fail. Passengers aren't a guaranteed source of revenue.
Ridership demands are highly fluctuative. Transit needs a steady cash flow,
which it doesn't have.
Do you want to know why tour companies can make money? They operate on demand,
and not on supply. Tour companies do their business through hotels and travel
agencies, and tourists pay a small fare to get a nice tour. Or, they get
chartered. They only operate when someone paid for their use. Transit has to
operate on a schedule, and is paramount on a bus running, with no way of
knowing who boards a bus and where.
Andrew Freeman
On 18 Dec 1997, KKossler wrote:
>
> It's that public transportation is slow, dirty, and riders are normally
> human garbage. (I should say, the human garbage only is a phenomenon of
> urban areas. In suburban areas, you don't have that problem since
> nobody uses transit in the suburbs.)
>
Do you really mean this? I know a white supremacist suburban teenager who
beats up his girlfriend when he's not stoned or drunk, he is not "garbage"
because he's never rode a bus in his life? Old man on the bus who needs a
bath is garbage.
Maybe you mean to say on Transit you have to continually look at the
garbage, while on the road they cut you off, give you the finger and
drive on.
ATF
Bob Nelson
KKossler wrote in message <19971218232...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>"Bob Nelson" <tw...@ohio-state.com> wrote:
>In other words, you want highways to have an admission fee, when it is
paying
>for the fixed costs just fine through taxing.
Here's another way of looking at what you call an "admission fee". Let's
accept the theoretical maximum of 1500 cars per hour per lane of traffic.
Put another way, a three-lane highway has a stock of 4500 "slots" that it
can sell per hour. This is no different from a supermarket having 4500 cans
of beer to sell, or K-Mart having 4500 packages of underwear to sell. Except
for one thing -- the 4500 highway slots are *free*. If food and underwear
were free, what do you think the stocks would look like? Highways are no
different -- it's first-come, first-served, and there's no charge. The
result...queues (read: traffic jams). Of course, there *is* a cost to these
queues -- and that's the time spent sitting in them. So, if your time is
worth a lot, you lose a lot. Highways are biased towards favoring people
whose time is worthless.
Onto the myth of how highways "pay for themselves"...
Since almost no highways have user charges, they can't possibly pay for
themselves because they're *free*. "OK," you might say, "how about fuel
taxes?" Then let's assume that we have a "closed system" where highways are
totally funded by highway users who pay fuel taxes. Let's extend this
reasoning. Do you like socialized health care? That's a closed system, too.
The users pay taxes (and everyone is a user of health care), and the
benefits "pay" for the system.
Let's continue extending the logic. How about socializing *everything*? If
*everything* was paid with taxes (by the "users" of everything, of course),
then we have the ultimate closed system -- total socialism. You see, our
socialist highways are just a subset of this. And if you somehow equate
highways with "freedom", you're engaging in communist double-speak. Lenin
would be proud.
>=Only a socialist highway system would be designed so that peak-hour users
of
>=metro-area highways pay the same amount as motorists driving on empty
>=highways in Montana.
>So only peak hour users of metropolitan areas should pay, while the Montana
>highways should go free? If its socialism we're talking about, the folks in
>Montana deserve to be shafted equally as those in metro areas.
Exactly! The motorists in Montana *are* being "shafted" equally as those in
metro areas. (Or as a better comparison, motorists in rural and urban areas
in the same state are being shafted to the same extent as they pay identical
fuel taxes.)
>Two examples. Whoopee. Make a list of successes. It's a short list, so it
>shouldn't be too tough. For everything not on there, it is a failure.
My point was not to provide a laundry list, but to refute your false
generalization of how transit users aren't "fortunate enough to own cars."
In fact, instead of me coming up with a long list of commuter-rail systems
serving affluent people, I challenge you to list a *single* commuter-rail
line where the passengers don't own cars.
>Keep in mind that transit agencies seek riders for riders sake, with costs
>being no object. Transit works much like a publication. A publication sells
>subscriptions at prices close to cost or below it, so they could get
>advertising revenue by boasting a high circulation rate. That's the way
transit
>works, except it's with riders and they are seeking revenue from big
>government. The only difference is that a publication has to watch their
bottom
>line, while transit can be as showy as it wants.
That much is correct. Transit agencies do view ridership as some sort of a
inexplicable barometer of how "well" they're doing. Of course, to really
jack up the ridership to a nice fat artificial level, they should abolish
fares and make it free. Like highways.
>It's not my life. It's 95% of Americans' lives! I'll cut the number down
for
>SOV users. 72%. Highways help not just drivers, but it is a major component
for
>transportation of goods. Transit can only benefit passengers, but highways
>benefit both cars and manufacturers and suppliers.
95% of the people like sausage on their pizza, and 5% like spinach.
Therefore we should abolish spinach and subsidize sausage? What's the point
here?
>=For that matter, how woud you feel about *private* transit?
>
>I urge any private company to step up to the plate.
It's already happened. (Illegal) private van operators in New York City
successfully compete against the public-transit monopoly. But asking for
private transit is like asking for private schools. How is anyone supposed
to start a business against the "free" government services? Taxpayers are
*already paying* for subsidized transportation and schools -- how can they
be expected to pay twice for private *and* public facilities?
There's nothing inherently "socialist" about transit and there's nothing
inherently "capitalist" about highways. In practice, both modes are heavily
subsidized and therefore socialist. Transit's downfall into socialism was
brought on by the government itself with fare regulation, zoning abuses,
union favoritism, the bottomless pit of taxpayer dollars that the unions can
feed off of, and of course the socialist highway system.
If you think of mass transportation beyond what you see on city streets,
then it's easy to find private companies operating successfully. What are
airplanes, if not big buses in the sky? When in a building, do you get your
private elevator, or do you see other passengers in there with you?
Let Amtrak take over the airlines, and watch as they deteriorate. But is it
because flying is inferior, or is it because of the form of ownership?
--
BN
George Conklin
In article <67bcc2$d...@examiner.concentric.net>,
Bob Nelson <tw...@ohio-state.com> wrote:
>
>KKossler wrote in message <19971218021...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
>>"Bob Nelson" <tw...@ohio-state.com> wrote:
>
>>= I doubt it would go over well -- Americans feel that
>>=they somehow have a "right" to use highways without payment for their use.
>>
>>That is true. That is my ideology above. But, being a traffic consultant, I
>>also know that a large majority of the public do not want to pay tolls,
>user
>>fees, etc. It will never go over. Despite libertarian viewpoints of
>everyone
>>paying their own way, most people in the US would not want to fork over
>cash
>>each time they use a highway. Libertarian views may be right (or wrong),
>but
>>it's merely an ideological splinter still dwarfed by the mainstream.
>
>
How sophomoric. They pay for your education at Ohio
State. Further, people have always proven very willing to
try get and pay for a private house.
r...@inetworld.net
On 17 Dec 97 04:55:09 GMT, 555...@mail.teclink.net wrote:
>I am not a planner, but have been on a planning commission for about 12
>years, about half of which I was chairman. We have a transportation
>planner on our commission, an architect, an engineer, a landscape
>architect, a lawyer, a wildlife and fisheries officer, and a
>retired contractor. I am one of the above. I have lived in a city of
>one million, one of 250,000 and the present one is an 8,000 person
>bedroom community to a 250,000 city. I have been exposed to a couple of
>city planning courses, and attended various seminars, but admit I am not
>a city planner.
Actually, if you're engaged in the planning of your community by
serving on the planning commission, you are in fact a "planner". You
may not be a professional one, but what the hey.
>
>Our present bedroom community had under 3,000 when I first got
>appoionted to the planning commission by a very planning conscious mayor.
>
>We learned from our neighboring towns how lack of sign ordinances can
>hurt a town. We have tried to learn from the mistakes of big cities.
Perhaps, but keep an open mind on this one. I'd rather see some sort
of design review for signs than just have a rigid standard that
everyone must follow. A good example is the community of Hillcrest
here in San Diego. An old-line Chinese restaurant had a 35 foot high
neon sign in the shape of a dragon. Everyone loved it because it was
truly art. But they changed the sign ordinance and attempted to force
the restaurant to take it down. Took a massive write-in/phone-in
campaign by the neighborhood to save it. Signs can be art or they can
be visual pollution. I think a bit of flexibility goes a long way.
>
>One of the things we are trying to do is avoid high density. This seems
>to bring on big city problems such as traffic and the mass transit issue.
> Right now we have been able to keep density down by limiting building
>heights to 35 feet and keeping commercial areas small and residential
>areas low density by zoning. We do not use FAR, yet. We have a
>"historic" district, an architectural review commission, and so far have
>kept the image of the quaint ole small town. The community is now one of
>the most affluent in our state, and apparently we have a reputation of
>strict zoning principles that attracts people of that value that.
Whether or not you can avoid high desity is problematic. The idea is
that you put the density where you want it, rather than allowing it to
just run rampant, destroying one SFR neighborhood after another.
There's a place for density if the infrastructure is in place. And
density doesn't necessarily draw crime. Take a look at golf club
communities sometime. They can be fairly dense but they're hardly
places with crime. OTOH, many burbs often have a rather high level of
crime despite having relatively low densities (although 4-5 houses per
acre is hardly what I'd call low density).
>
>Travel time to the "big city" is under a half hour by interstate in our
>"capsules". We are not yet self sufficient (being a bedroom community
>that is dependent on the "big city"), but have steadily seen our
>commercial area increase revenue and tax base.
>
>We would appreciate any advice you might have for us at this point,
>before it is too late.
There's only so much development you can absorb before you become what
you don't want to be. Bring in enough commercial and industrial (of
any sort) development and you're on your way to becoming exactly like
the city that you depend on at this point.
Nothing is an absolute. Density is not an absolute evil and lack of
density is not an absolute good. But it takes wisdom and the
recognition that things have to be planned in order to make it all
work. And keep in mind that everything is relative. For someone like
me, who grew up in a town of 4,000 that was 70 miles from the "big
city" (Syracuse, which isn't all that "big"), George's notions of
density are ridiculous. When I could walk a quarter mile from my
house and be so far into the woods that you wouldn't know another
person existed on the face of the earth, the idea that the burbs
aren't "dense" is nonsense.
So my advice is this. Take the long view. Decide what you want your
community to look like 25 and 50 years from now and then decide how to
plan for it. Don't look at what your current shortcomings or your
current strengths are - that's for the Chamber of Commerce to decide.
As a planner, it's your job to have a vision of the future and to meld
it into some sort of coherent whole with the citizens of your
community.
r...@inetworld.net
On 17 Dec 1997 16:31:02 -0500, hen...@nina.pagesz.net (George Conklin)
wrote:
>Depending on cities are planned, they can be expensive or
>cheap to build and maintain. In general, the higher the
>density of the city, the higher the initital capital costs
>and running costs. (M.A. Jones, pp. 32-36 in Austrialian
>and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 1973).
>s notes, "British studies have
>shown that in a new city of 250,000, a rail system (without
>rolling stock) would cost about twice as much to construct
>as the entire main road system."
And once again, George, I'd challenge you to drop the modifier, "new
city" and show us any sort of data that proves that what you're saying
has any relevence to existing cities. This is a bullshit quote based
upon the economist's bullshit rhetoric of "all things being equal".
Where exactly is this "new city". Where exactly are there any real
world data points that show that the same would hold true for an
existing city?
Colin R. Leech
KKossler (kkos...@aol.com) wrote:
> [...]
> ~Kirby~
I was going to respond to some of KK's many posts on this subject, but
frankly it's not worth the time and energy to shoot down his many
fallacious statements.
George Conklin
In article <349b10f0...@news.inetworld.net>, <r...@inetworld.net> wrote:
>On 17 Dec 1997 16:31:02 -0500, hen...@nina.pagesz.net (George Conklin)
>wrote:
>
>
>>Depending on cities are planned, they can be expensive or
>>cheap to build and maintain. In general, the higher the
>>density of the city, the higher the initital capital costs
>>and running costs. (M.A. Jones, pp. 32-36 in Austrialian
>>and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 1973).
>>s notes, "British studies have
>>shown that in a new city of 250,000, a rail system (without
>>rolling stock) would cost about twice as much to construct
>>as the entire main road system."
>
>And once again, George, I'd challenge you to drop the modifier, "new
>city" and show us any sort of data that proves that what you're saying
>has any relevence to existing cities
You did ther usual: elmininate the part of the post which
shows that with current cities the costs go up with density.
You objected that the data were only in 1986, therefore
everyting has changed since then, your usual line dismissal
of real data and substitution of your own emotions.
So read Urban Studies for a change.
Author: Ladd-Helen-F.
Title: Population growth, density and the costs of providing public
services (Special Issue: Problems of Urban Agglomeration, 1961-
91).
Source: Urban-Studies. April, 1992. v29(n2). p273(23).
Copyright: COPYRIGHT Urban Studies (UK) 1992
Illustration: table. graph.
Abstract: Recent policy interest in managing local population growth has
drawn attention to the fiscal pressures that population growth
imposes on local governments. This paper uses 1985 data for
247 large county areas to determine the separate impacts on
local gov ernment spending of two dimensions of residential
development patterns, the rapidity of popul ation growth and
DropSpiner
I am visually impaired. Public transportation not an option. It is a necessity
to me. Before you condem Public Transportation reconize its hidden asset. I
and others like me are using it to get to work. We could be unable to get to
work and recieving public assistance or disablity payments. An your tax dollars
could be supporting us.
Colin R. Leech
KKossler (kkos...@aol.com) wrote:
>
> The best
> place to place a tollbooth is at the onramp of a highway. But, backing up a
> queue for entry would subsequently back up streets. Onramps with sharp curves
> were not designed for effective stopping and starting. You can place them at
> the exits, but highway traffic would back up. Placing them on the highways is
> out of the question.
There are several highways that have toll booths along the mainline.
The Garden State Pkwy. in NJ, for one.
> Computerized tollways are in effect, and they have been largely losers.
> The California 91 Freeway HOT lane comes to mind.
And the 407 noth of Toronto. But their main reason for failure is that
they are trying to compete with free highways provided by the government.
It's little surprise that people aren't willing to pay much for something
they're used to getting for free.
> Transit works much like a publication. A publication sells
> subscriptions at prices close to cost or below it, so they could get
> advertising revenue by boasting a high circulation rate. That's the way transit
> works, except it's with riders and they are seeking revenue from big
> government.
That's silly. There are a whole host of reasons why it's in the public
interest to have lots of people on transit, quite apart from having good
PR with the politicians.
> Highways help not just drivers, but it is a major component for
> transportation of goods. Transit can only benefit passengers, but highways
> benefit both cars and manufacturers and suppliers.
Transit benefits car drivers by reducing the number of other cars
competing for their space.
r...@inetworld.net
On 20 Dec 1997 08:06:40 -0500, hen...@nina.pagesz.net (George Conklin)
wrote:
>In article <349b10f0...@news.inetworld.net>, <r...@inetworld.net> wrote:
>>On 17 Dec 1997 16:31:02 -0500, hen...@nina.pagesz.net (George Conklin)
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Depending on cities are planned, they can be expensive or
>>>cheap to build and maintain. In general, the higher the
>>>density of the city, the higher the initital capital costs
>>>and running costs. (M.A. Jones, pp. 32-36 in Austrialian
>>>and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 1973).
>>>s notes, "British studies have
>>>shown that in a new city of 250,000, a rail system (without
>>>rolling stock) would cost about twice as much to construct
>>>as the entire main road system."
>>
>>And once again, George, I'd challenge you to drop the modifier, "new
>>city" and show us any sort of data that proves that what you're saying
>>has any relevence to existing cities
>
> You did ther usual: elmininate the part of the post which
>shows that with current cities the costs go up with density.
>You objected that the data were only in 1986, therefore
>everyting has changed since then, your usual line dismissal
>of real data and substitution of your own emotions.
Nope. All I did was challenge one portion of your post. That's
hardly what you claim. You take this data and then use some sort of
modifier such as "new city" to make your point about transit. That's
what I'm challenging. Does cost go up with density? To a certain
extent it probably does because you have more people using the roads
and demanding services such as fire and police. But since you've
never offered a valid argument to the concept that cities are
"emptying out", I see no reason why cost is a valid measure. All
you've ever argued is that the people who've "gotten theirs" buy
houses in the burbs, where the land is cheaper. You totally neglect
the poor working shulb who can't afford to buy a house and lives in
the urban core. But then, to you, he doesn't count anyway so why not
cut off any support for his nieghborhood.?
Jerry Rioux
> And the 407 noth of Toronto. But their main reason for failure is that
> they are trying to compete with free highways provided by the government.
> It's little surprise that people aren't willing to pay much for something
> they're used to getting for free.
Highways are never free. The cost of "free highways" are just hidden in
our gas, excise and income taxes.
KKossler
ag...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Colin R. Leech) wrote:
=> Transit works much like a publication. A publication sells
=> subscriptions at prices close to cost or below it, so they could get
=> advertising revenue by boasting a high circulation rate. That's the way
transit
=> works, except it's with riders and they are seeking revenue from big
=> government.
=That's silly. There are a whole host of reasons why it's in the public
=interest to have lots of people on transit, quite apart from having good
=PR with the politicians.
Like?
Since it is not the passenger who is the main benefactor of the public
transportation system, the transit system goes to the government, who really
pays the bills for the agency.
It's not in the public interest to provide public transportation. After all,
the public is not maintaining the buses nor paying salaries. Actually, it's in
nobody's benefit. Not even the people seeing the day-to-day operations of the
transit system have to rely on it. The public does not really want to use
public transit, just happen to be using it out of circumstance.
Ask anyone if they would rather drive a car or take public transit. Oh, and
don't load the question in the favor of transit either.
~Happy Holidays from Kirby~
=Quote of the week=
"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the
corrupt few."-George Bernard Shaw
Colin R. Leech
K.C. Jackson (kc...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
> In <678nla$c...@examiner.concentric.net> "Bob Nelson"
> <tw...@ohio-state.com> writes:
>>
>>In that regard, so-called "public" transit is actually more
>>"capitalist" than highways. At least the users pay *something* for
>>their ride -- although the fixed-cost component of transit is entirely
>>socialized. In contrast, highway users *do* pay for much of the
>>fixed-costs of the highways (i.e., the vehicles), but nothing toward
>>the actual use of the roads.
>
> Huh? Does the phrase "fuel tax" ring a bell? Everybody pays it,
> including bus companies and transit authorities. Fuel tax pays for
part of the
> construction and maintenance of every road in the US, including toll
> roads.
>
>
Colin R. Leech
Of course you are correct. "Free to the user" is what I was writing about.
APPSINC
>Ask anyone if they would rather drive a car or take public transit. Oh, and
>don't load the question in the favor of transit either.
I'd rather take public transit. In fact, availability of public transit and
proximity of convenience shopping (so I can walk) are two of my primarily
considerations when choosing a place to live.
KKossler
app...@aol.com (APPSINC) wrote:
=I'd rather take public transit. In fact, availability of public transit and
=proximity of convenience shopping (so I can walk) are two of my primarily
=considerations when choosing a place to live.
What about crime? Good schools available for your children? Noise in the area?
r...@inetworld.net
On 24 Dec 1997 17:40:37 GMT, kkos...@aol.com (KKossler) wrote:
>app...@aol.com (APPSINC) wrote:
>
>=I'd rather take public transit. In fact, availability of public transit and
>=proximity of convenience shopping (so I can walk) are two of my primarily
>=considerations when choosing a place to live.
>
>What about crime? Good schools available for your children? Noise in the area?
In many cases, crime is becoming as bad in the auto oriented burbs as
it is in the center cities. Talk to people who live in Mira Mesa, for
instance.
There's nothing to suggest that center city schools can't be as good
as burb schools. One of the reasons that Adams Avenue Elementary in
Normal Heights is overcrowded is because it's recognized as being one
of the better schools in they system.
Noise is something that some people can put up with while others
can't. I lived in Ocean Beach for 15 years the noise of the jets
going overhead never bothered me in the least. Others' mileage
varied.
So the point, Kirby, is that what makes any given area desireable to
some could well make it undesireable for others. The idea is that we
do our best to accomodate everyone who wants to live wherever they
want to live.
George's argument is that he knows what's best for people and has a
better idea of what their priorities should be than they do. This is
patent nonsense. People move to a given community for any number of
reasons and just like everyone else, they're citizens to deserve the
best services possible. To attempt to assume that any of us knows
what's "best" for them and make decisions based upon that is the
absolute height of arrogance. The role of government in the U.S. is
to mediate between competing demands. Certainly a majority would love
to live in an SFR that they own, but a fair amount of people can't do
that (and a fair amount of people have no desire to undertake the sort
of work that owning a home demands). So what do we do with them?
Just decide that since the majority wants to own a home we don't have
to bother with the rest? Do we offer nothing for the young couple
who's starting out and hoping to save enough to eventually buy a home
but for now has to live in an apartment? Do they not deserve as much
as the property owner?
Ventura Bento
APPSINC <app...@aol.com> escreveu no artigo
<19971223163...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
> >Ask anyone if they would rather drive a car or take public transit. Oh,
and
> >don't load the question in the favor of transit either.
>
> I'd rather take public transit. In fact, availability of public transit
and
> proximity of convenience shopping (so I can walk) are two of my primarily
> considerations when choosing a place to live.
>
If time is avaible...if not you got you the best option!
I beleive that the public tranports needs to offer every thing that private
transportation does more saving a few buck. If not you cannot blame the
caos of a good traffic jam. The quality of life in the Cities can be
evaluate by the quality of the public transports!
Robert Coté
>There's nothing to suggest that center city schools can't be as good
>as burb schools.
Except test scores. Except family demographics. Except environmental
factors. Except resources. Except length of residence both teachers
and students. Except people who convieniently forget all the factors
that make it harder for inner city students to acheive. Ignore the
problem like you suggest is no solution.
>One of the reasons that Adams Avenue Elementary in
>Normal Heights is overcrowded is because it's recognized as being one
>of the better schools in they system.
No, the reason Adams Elementary in Normal Heights is overcrowded is
because the other schools are recognized as being inferior and the
residents are limited to minor transfers rather than improvement or
private education options.
>Noise is something that some people can put up with while others
>can't. I lived in Ocean Beach for 15 years the noise of the jets
>going overhead never bothered me in the least. Others' mileage
>varied.
No one ever says its' too quiet. Decibels not activity. No one ever
wants more noise in their neighborhood.
>So the point, Kirby, is that what makes any given area desireable to
>some could well make it undesireable for others. The idea is that we
>do our best to accomodate everyone who wants to live wherever they
>want to live.
Everyone? Socialists who want to live for less than market prices?
Anarchists who want everyone to live anywhere they want? Planners
that want you to live close to public transit ONLY? Remrmber those
that want public transit need to force others into the same "choice"
to justify their choice. Personally, I want to live on a golf course
with unobstructed views and densities of 1/2 DUs per acre. I want
my taxes and cost of living low. How do you accomodate me and the
teeming masses? You can't, there have to be choices. Problem is
I am not the choice of most planners (except as a neighbor).
>Who knows what miracle tomorrow may bring?
Acknowledge that unner city schools have obstacles to acheivement?
A miracle!
School choice for other than the rich? A miracle!
Residents with say in zoning regs? A miracle!
--
***************************************************************
Verifiable paranoia does not deny the possibility that they ARE out to get you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the purpose(s) of this message, Robert Cote is tech...@west.net
***************************************************************
Toby Reiter
> >>On 17 Dec 1997 16:31:02 -0500, hen...@nina.pagesz.net (George Conklin)
> >>wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Depending on cities are planned, they can be expensive or
> >>>cheap to build and maintain. In general, the higher the
> >>>density of the city, the higher the initital capital costs
> >>>and running costs. (M.A. Jones, pp. 32-36 in Austrialian
> >>>and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 1973).
> >>>s notes, "British studies have
> >>>shown that in a new city of 250,000, a rail system (without
> >>>rolling stock) would cost about twice as much to construct
> >>>as the entire main road system."
Funny....I heard (second hand), that my city is thinking of developing
some light rail transit. The estimated cost is$1-2 million/mi. This same
person also told me that the alternative, more roadway construction
(highways) would cost $30 million/mi. I'll post more info about this when
I have harder statistics, but I have no reason to believe laying down
track should be more expensive than asphalt.
I'll try and have the hard figures in a day or two.
Toby Reiter
Robert Coté
In article <34a852d4...@news.inetworld.net>, r...@inetworld.net wrote:
>On Sun, 28 Dec 1997 12:42:58 -0800, tech...@west.net (Robert Coté)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <34a195ae...@news.inetworld.net>, r...@inetworld.net wrote:
>>
>>>There's nothing to suggest that center city schools can't be as good
>>>as burb schools.
>>
>>Except test scores. Except family demographics. Except environmental
>>factors. Except resources. Except length of residence both teachers
>>and students. Except people who convieniently forget all the factors
>>that make it harder for inner city students to acheive. Ignore the
>>problem like you suggest is no solution.
>
>No that suggests that center city schools AREN'T as good as burb
>schools. It doesn't suggest that they CAN'T be. Please read what I
>write, Robert.
I was extraordinarially careful to both read and avoid snipping any
pertainent comment. I was also very careful to avoid any indication that
race or ethnicity were pertainent. I listed 7 accurate and pertainent
factors why center city schools cannot be as good as burb schools. If
the seven and the others that take longer than a minute to describe
are addressed, then parity is possible. You said "nothing" and if
that were true then it is up to YOU to explain the obvious difference.
>>>One of the reasons that Adams Avenue Elementary in
>>>Normal Heights is overcrowded is because it's recognized as being one
>>>of the better schools in they system.
>>
>>No, the reason Adams Elementary in Normal Heights is overcrowded is
>>because the other schools are recognized as being inferior and the
>>residents are limited to minor transfers rather than improvement or
>>private education options.
>
>But Adams Elementary is in fact a first circle burb school. It's
>surrounded by apartment houses and all those other things that
>everyone claims automatically makes a school "bad". As for being
>limited to minor transfers, not correct.
California does not have open transfers or vouchers. Anything less
is by my reasoning is minor transfer. Put another way, within the
current school system you cannot change at any structural level higher
than school district. Even those interdistrict transfers are subject
to arbitrary and capracious treatment.
>Students in San Diego can
>pretty much go to any San Diego Unified School District school that
>they want.
Except the ones that are full, ethniclly unbalanced, magnets, under
court orders, part of a breakaway area, private, religous, etc.
My point.
>The problem is that their parents aren't exactly thrilled
>about them riding a bus for an hour each way to get there. San Diego
>also has any number of magnet schools.
Where there are academic standards to be met unless they help meet some
special conditions... right?
>My step-daughter went to an
>inner city middle school.
For shame, you could have done better and didn't. Don't tell me you
supported the district, you hobbled your step-daughter.
>>>The idea is that we
>>>do our best to accomodate everyone who wants to live wherever they
>>>want to live.
>>
>>Everyone? Socialists who want to live for less than market prices?
>>Anarchists who want everyone to live anywhere they want? Planners
>>that want you to live close to public transit ONLY? Remrmber those
>>that want public transit need to force others into the same "choice"
>>to justify their choice. Personally, I want to live on a golf course
>>with unobstructed views and densities of 1/2 DUs per acre. I want
>>my taxes and cost of living low. How do you accomodate me and the
>>teeming masses? You can't, there have to be choices. Problem is
>>I am not the choice of most planners (except as a neighbor).
>
>A totally emotional and ill-formed argument since it resorts to using
>buzz words such as "socialist" and "anarchist" and then attempts to
>put all planners in the same vein.
No people as anarchists and socialists to be accomodated, not planners.
You as a planner cannot accomodate my desires because it interferes with
your best judgement of how to accomodate the most people most equitablly.
That isn't a bad concept. Get elected to exercise that power legitmately
and I don't argue BUT try it without that authority and we are in conflict.
>You want to live on a golf course
>with unobstructed views and 2 acre lot minimums? Not likely to happen
>because the people developing the golf courses don't care to have that
>much space around their course. OTOH, I can show you a number of golf
>course communities that have been approved by the County of San Diego
>(with a recommendation from staff that they be approved) over the last
>20 years.
Sucker, I DO live on a golf course at less than 1/2 DU per acre. It's
a fact and therefor very likely. You can't even avoid being wrong
on a specific instance nevermind general observations.
>Have you ever spent any time at all looking around San Diego County,
>Robert?
Of course I have, that's why I know more about development patterns and
specific data about the area than you. I have referenced SANDAG, SCAG,
demographics, etc. data that directly contradicts your comments. You
have yet to refer to independent sources.
...
>
>How do I accomodate you? By giving you a choice that's reasonable.
Excuuuse me! should rcf be capatialized like other deities or are you
able to post from the heavens as a condecension to us mortals? You
do not "give" me anything, indeed, not even courtesy according to
your posts. It is not your place to decide "reasonable."
>It may not be everything you want...Do I allow...
>do I just decide that you're the only one who counts because you've
>got the bucks to live next to the golf course and say "to hell" with
>everyone else?
You still don't get it. You DON'T decide. It's not your job. Indeed
your "job" is a mystery to me. You prevoiusly stated that you work at
the highest levels of SD regional planning. That is of course un-
supportable. If really true you can't tell us for fear that your
comments will get back to the organization and if false, you cannot
tell us for fear of being caught in yet another lie.
>>>Who knows what miracle tomorrow may bring?
>>
>>Acknowledge that unner city schools have obstacles to acheivement?
>>A miracle!
>
>No they don't. What they have is a lot less money.
The state of CA has absolutely tilted the financial balance in favor
of inner city schools. Average daily attendence being the most
obvious transfer of money from "rich" to "poor" districts. Schools
all get the same amounts from the state per pupil.
>>School choice for other than the rich? A miracle!
>
>Ah, ya gotta love the libertarians. Tell ya what.. If you put some
>sort of income limit on those vouchers,
Oh, tax the rich "extra" to what? Punish them? Why? They already
have the choice that you will only "conditionally" grant other
economic strata. One surefire way to keep the classes seperated is to
treat them differently. Treat all classes the same and they will join
together if only to complain about their treatment.
>I might actually consider
>going along with that. OTOH, ain't no way a couple of grand a year is
>going to get a kid from the barrio into La Jolla Country Day.
Not your call, especially given your track record with your daughter.
Ask the parents whether that coupla grand will make a difference, don't
bother you KNOW the answer.
>He may
>bet a better school or his parents may get talked into sending him to
>some slickter's school that will do an even worse job of educating
>him.
Agreed, not aperfect solution but given the worst ratio of per pupil
spending to test scores in the nation, there's nowhere to go but up.
>>Residents with say in zoning regs? A miracle!
>
>Residents do have a say. It's known as the public hearing process.
I was very careful in choosing the word "say" because I agree they
have a voice. I disagree that they have a say. Symantis maybe but
the intent was to distinguish powerless venting from true influence.
>Unfortunately, residents can't afford to spend several hours a day
>lobbying the politicians and proclaiming that their ideas on the
>subject will result in JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.
They aren't supposed or expected to. That's the job of planning staff
to provide unbiased analysis. Do your job, that's all I ask.
>You'd really be surprised
>how many planners agree with you on this - and you'd really be
>surprised how many planners actually take part in their local planning
>groups and have to deal with the same frustrations that you do.
I agree and see it all the time. Good intentions have paved the road
to hell, etc. I judge by results not intentions. The results have
been poor.
>But
>since we work for them, we may see a bit more clearly exactly how
>difficult it is to get a politician to do anything other than count
>votes. My local planning group has been close to flat out told by our
>city councilwoman that we shouldn't even bother to come to her with an
>idea unless we can assure her that she won't lose votes from it.
Actually I am not suprised at the number of fine individuals the
"planning process" has ground up an spit out, planner and public
alike. You mistake my disgust with the system for disgust with
the persons involved. Inasmuch as the participants do not try to
change or stand up to the system that is when it gets personal.
>So the problem, Robert, is that you're attempting to tar all of us
>with the same brush. That's certainly not something I'd do with
>people from whatever profession you happen to be engaged in so I
>really don't see why you think it's allowable with us.
You are correct. Please post a list of planners that have resigned
rather than sully their professional ethics by staying quiet over
a bad decision that contravened their recommendation.
You see for all your professed ethics and standards, you
lack the strength of your convictions.
--
***************************************************************
We lose money on every passenger we carry. How do we do it? Volume.
r...@inetworld.net
>In article <34a195ae...@news.inetworld.net>, r...@inetworld.net wrote:
>
>>There's nothing to suggest that center city schools can't be as good
>>as burb schools.
>
>Except test scores. Except family demographics. Except environmental
>factors. Except resources. Except length of residence both teachers
>and students. Except people who convieniently forget all the factors
>that make it harder for inner city students to acheive. Ignore the
>problem like you suggest is no solution.
No that suggests that center city schools AREN'T as good as burb
schools. It doesn't suggest that they CAN'T be. Please read what I
write, Robert.
>>One of the reasons that Adams Avenue Elementary in
>>Normal Heights is overcrowded is because it's recognized as being one
>>of the better schools in they system.
>
>No, the reason Adams Elementary in Normal Heights is overcrowded is
>because the other schools are recognized as being inferior and the
>residents are limited to minor transfers rather than improvement or
>private education options.
But Adams Elementary is in fact a first circle burb school. It's
surrounded by apartment houses and all those other things that
everyone claims automatically makes a school "bad". As for being
limited to minor transfers, not correct. Students in San Diego can
pretty much go to any San Diego Unified School District school that
they want. The problem is that their parents aren't exactly thrilled
about them riding a bus for an hour each way to get there. San Diego
also has any number of magnet schools. My step-daughter went to an
inner city middle school. The high school that I graduated from,
which could be seen as an "elite" school, has a ton of kids come in
from other areas of the city.
>>So the point, Kirby, is that what makes any given area desireable to
>>some could well make it undesireable for others. The idea is that we
>>do our best to accomodate everyone who wants to live wherever they
>>want to live.
>
>Everyone? Socialists who want to live for less than market prices?
>Anarchists who want everyone to live anywhere they want? Planners
>that want you to live close to public transit ONLY? Remrmber those
>that want public transit need to force others into the same "choice"
>to justify their choice. Personally, I want to live on a golf course
>with unobstructed views and densities of 1/2 DUs per acre. I want
>my taxes and cost of living low. How do you accomodate me and the
>teeming masses? You can't, there have to be choices. Problem is
>I am not the choice of most planners (except as a neighbor).
A totally emotional and ill-formed argument since it resorts to using
buzz words such as "socialist" and "anarchist" and then attempts to
put all planners in the same vein. You want to live on a golf course
with unobstructed views and 2 acre lot minimums? Not likely to happen
because the people developing the golf courses don't care to have that
much space around their course. OTOH, I can show you a number of golf
course communities that have been approved by the County of San Diego
(with a recommendation from staff that they be approved) over the last
20 years.
Have you ever spent any time at all looking around San Diego County,
Robert? This ain't Ventura. We're almost as big as Rhode Island and
Delaware combined. Come down for a visit. I'd be happy to show you
La Costa, Hidden Meadows, Fairbanks Ranch, Pala Mesa and several other
golf course communities. But like I said, don't look for 2 acre lots,
because the developers don't want them.
How do I accomodate you? By giving you a choice that's reasonable.
It may not be everything you want, but that's hardly the same as
stating that I'm forcing you to live in a high-rise close to transit.
OTOH, how exactly do I accomodate people who can't live on in a gated
community next to a golf course? Do I allow every SFR neighborhood to
be torn down so the developers can build apartments or do I recognize
that the best places to put density are along transit corridors? Or
do I just decide that you're the only one who counts because you've
got the bucks to live next to the golf course and say "to hell" with
everyone else?
>
>>Who knows what miracle tomorrow may bring?
>
>Acknowledge that unner city schools have obstacles to acheivement?
>A miracle!
No they don't. What they have is a lot less money.
>
>School choice for other than the rich? A miracle!
Ah, ya gotta love the libertarians. Tell ya what.. If you put some
sort of income limit on those vouchers, I might actually consider
going along with that. OTOH, ain't no way a couple of grand a year is
going to get a kid from the barrio into La Jolla Country Day. He may
bet a better school or his parents may get talked into sending him to
some slickter's school that will do an even worse job of educating
him.
>Residents with say in zoning regs? A miracle!
Residents do have a say. It's known as the public hearing process.
Unfortunately, residents can't afford to spend several hours a day
lobbying the politicians and proclaiming that their ideas on the
subject will result in JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. You'd really be surprised
how many planners agree with you on this - and you'd really be
surprised how many planners actually take part in their local planning
groups and have to deal with the same frustrations that you do. But
since we work for them, we may see a bit more clearly exactly how
difficult it is to get a politician to do anything other than count
votes. My local planning group has been close to flat out told by our
city councilwoman that we shouldn't even bother to come to her with an
idea unless we can assure her that she won't lose votes from it.
So the problem, Robert, is that you're attempting to tar all of us
with the same brush. That's certainly not something I'd do with
people from whatever profession you happen to be engaged in so I
really don't see why you think it's allowable with us.
=Bob
r...@inetworld.net
On Mon, 29 Dec 1997 22:04:57 -0800, tech...@west.net (Robert Coté)
wrote:
>In article <34a852d4...@news.inetworld.net>, r...@inetworld.net wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 28 Dec 1997 12:42:58 -0800, tech...@west.net (Robert Coté)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In article <34a195ae...@news.inetworld.net>, r...@inetworld.net wrote:
>>>
>>>>There's nothing to suggest that center city schools can't be as good
>>>>as burb schools.
>>>
>>>Except test scores. Except family demographics. Except environmental
>>>factors. Except resources. Except length of residence both teachers
>>>and students. Except people who convieniently forget all the factors
>>>that make it harder for inner city students to acheive. Ignore the
>>>problem like you suggest is no solution.
>>
>>No that suggests that center city schools AREN'T as good as burb
>>schools. It doesn't suggest that they CAN'T be. Please read what I
>>write, Robert.
>
>I was extraordinarially careful to both read and avoid snipping any
>pertainent comment. I was also very careful to avoid any indication that
>race or ethnicity were pertainent. I listed 7 accurate and pertainent
>factors why center city schools cannot be as good as burb schools. If
>the seven and the others that take longer than a minute to describe
>are addressed, then parity is possible. You said "nothing" and if
>that were true then it is up to YOU to explain the obvious difference.
Robert, I'm not going to go through this with you. It's your opinion
and yours alone that those 7 factors make it "impossible" for an inner
city school to be as good as a burb school. Fact is, it's just not
true. But if you'd really like my opinion on the matter, I believe
that school boards and school administrators are some of the most
arrogant assholes this world has ever known and since the school board
is often seen by aspiring politicians as the first step toward higher
office, they're willing to kiss the asses of anyone in the "better"
communities because they're more likely to contribute to their
campaigns. I repeat my argument; there's no reason that inner city
schools can't be as good as burb schools. There are certainly a lot
of factors militating against that at the moment, and some of them are
in fact cultural, but demanding that all schools are good is not
beyond our grasp.
>>But Adams Elementary is in fact a first circle burb school. It's
>>surrounded by apartment houses and all those other things that
>>everyone claims automatically makes a school "bad". As for being
>>limited to minor transfers, not correct.
>
>California does not have open transfers or vouchers. Anything less
>is by my reasoning is minor transfer. Put another way, within the
>current school system you cannot change at any structural level higher
>than school district. Even those interdistrict transfers are subject
>to arbitrary and capracious treatment.
I think you're picking a few nits here.
>
>>Students in San Diego can
>>pretty much go to any San Diego Unified School District school that
>>they want.
>
>Except the ones that are full, ethniclly unbalanced, magnets, under
>court orders, part of a breakaway area, private, religous, etc.
>My point.
I'm really not sure that's the case because you're making one hell of
a lot of conditions here. My example, Adams Elementary, actually
buses kids out to less populous schools in the burbs. Clearly they're
not going to send kids to schools that are already overpopulated. The
locals wouldn't stand for it. And they're not going to send kids to
religious schools because people like me who believe in the
Constitution wouldn't stand for it.
>
>>The problem is that their parents aren't exactly thrilled
>>about them riding a bus for an hour each way to get there. San Diego
>>also has any number of magnet schools.
>
>Where there are academic standards to be met unless they help meet some
>special conditions... right?
To the extent that it integrates the school, sure. But a lot of those
magnets are schools that operate in the "better" areas and it ain't
all that difficult at all for a minority student to get into one of
them.
>
>>My step-daughter went to an
>>inner city middle school.
>
>For shame, you could have done better and didn't. Don't tell me you
>supported the district, you hobbled your step-daughter.
Actually it was a great school. You're the one who's making the
perjoritive decision that every inner-city school, by it's very
nature, is deficient. Her principal and Vice Principal were two of
the best educators I've ever met in my life and she learned far more
there than she would have going to her gang-ridden burb middle school.
Your problem is that you think only burb schools are "good". Ain't
the case.
>No people as anarchists and socialists to be accomodated, not planners.
>You as a planner cannot accomodate my desires because it interferes with
>your best judgement of how to accomodate the most people most equitablly.
>That isn't a bad concept. Get elected to exercise that power legitmately
>and I don't argue BUT try it without that authority and we are in conflict.
It's not my job to get elected to exercise power. As I've found out,
unfortunately, my main job is to make sure that the politicians get to
exercise that power by using staff to make sure their bridges are
always in good repair. OTOH, they're the ones who have to get up in
front of people and explain themselves every 4 years, so I'm not sure
I'm one to judge their actions.
>Sucker, I DO live on a golf course at less than 1/2 DU per acre. It's
>a fact and therefor very likely. You can't even avoid being wrong
>on a specific instance nevermind general observations.
Big deal. You live in Ventura County. Try it somewhere close to a
real city.
>
>>Have you ever spent any time at all looking around San Diego County,
>>Robert?
>
>Of course I have, that's why I know more about development patterns and
>specific data about the area than you. I have referenced SANDAG, SCAG,
>demographics, etc. data that directly contradicts your comments. You
>have yet to refer to independent sources.
I don't need to reference independent sources. I live with it every
day of my life. Your argument is that of the dilitant. You think
that by studying a few references on the net you can become some sort
of instant expert on any area that you get a longing to study. Not to
mention the fact that the only thing you've ever been able to do with
your "independent sources" is show that my memory isn't all that great
and my timeline was a bit off. But you've never really dealt with any
of the issues I've brought up other than to nitpick at the minor
details.
>>How do I accomodate you? By giving you a choice that's reasonable.
>
>Excuuuse me! should rcf be capatialized like other deities or are you
>able to post from the heavens as a condecension to us mortals? You
>do not "give" me anything, indeed, not even courtesy according to
>your posts. It is not your place to decide "reasonable."
Agreed to the point that it's always the job of government to mediate
between competing demands and "reasonable" becomes a function of the
compromises that can be worked out. If you don't like that, I'd
suggest you move to your little survivalist cabin in Montana and be
done with the whole mess. For every demand you make, I'm going to be
dealing with a demand from somebody that thinks your a complete
asshole and is more than willing to tell me that. Exactly how do I
deal with this? Or is it just the job of government to give everybody
what they what no matter what the consequences?
>
>>It may not be everything you want...Do I allow...
>>do I just decide that you're the only one who counts because you've
>>got the bucks to live next to the golf course and say "to hell" with
>>everyone else?
>
>You still don't get it. You DON'T decide. It's not your job. Indeed
>your "job" is a mystery to me. You prevoiusly stated that you work at
>the highest levels of SD regional planning. That is of course un-
>supportable. If really true you can't tell us for fear that your
>comments will get back to the organization and if false, you cannot
>tell us for fear of being caught in yet another lie.
Now it's my turn to say "EXCUUUUSE ME?" I never made any such claim.
At the moment I'm an Associate Planner with the County of San Diego
working on long-range projects. I'd really like to see some sort of
reference that I ever claimed to be working at the "highest levels of
San Diego regional planning". But I'll be happy to give you my resume
(would you like to do the same). I've got an MA (1980) from San Diego
State. I worked as an archaeologist from 1978 to 1982. I worked as a
letter carrier from 1983 to 1989. From 1989 until 1993 I worked as a
regulatory planner. From 1983 until November of this year I worked as
an environmental planner for the County's solid waste system. Since
then I've worked as a long-range planner. I've also been involved for
the last 7 years on my local planning group, my local community plan
update committee, my local recreation council, my local police
satellite relocation committee and my local community association.
Gee, Robert, what exactly have you done besides going to the
homeowners association once a month and bitched about how planners are
screwing you?
>
>>>>Who knows what miracle tomorrow may bring?
>>>
>>>Acknowledge that unner city schools have obstacles to acheivement?
>>>A miracle!
>>
>>No they don't. What they have is a lot less money.
>
>The state of CA has absolutely tilted the financial balance in favor
>of inner city schools. Average daily attendence being the most
>obvious transfer of money from "rich" to "poor" districts. Schools
>all get the same amounts from the state per pupil.
Agreed. So what?
>
>>>School choice for other than the rich? A miracle!
>>
>>Ah, ya gotta love the libertarians. Tell ya what.. If you put some
>>sort of income limit on those vouchers,
>
>Oh, tax the rich "extra" to what? Punish them? Why? They already
>have the choice that you will only "conditionally" grant other
>economic strata. One surefire way to keep the classes seperated is to
>treat them differently. Treat all classes the same and they will join
>together if only to complain about their treatment.
A bogus libertarian argument. Bring vouchers into play and there
still will be a total dicotomy because the government will never come
up with enough money to send poor kids to the really well to do
schools. All the voucher argument is at this point is a demand that
the rich get some extra bucks to pay to the La Jolla Country Days of
this world.
>
>>I might actually consider
>>going along with that. OTOH, ain't no way a couple of grand a year is
>>going to get a kid from the barrio into La Jolla Country Day.
>
>Not your call, especially given your track record with your daughter.
>Ask the parents whether that coupla grand will make a difference, don't
>bother you KNOW the answer.
Fuck you and the little white horse you rode in on, Robert. You have
no idea of what school my step-daughter went to; what sort of
education she got or what sort of decisions went into deciding to send
her there. If you want to get nasty, I'll be happy to do it. But I
really am quite disappointed that you can't come up with something
better than this incredibly bullshit ad hominem attack on my parenting
abilities.
Again, I say FUCK YOU. Christ, what gall! Is this the best you can
come up with? I really don't have the words to describe exactly how
much respect I've lost towards you for that last statement.
>
>>He may
>>bet a better school or his parents may get talked into sending him to
>>some slickter's school that will do an even worse job of educating
>>him.
>
>Agreed, not aperfect solution but given the worst ratio of per pupil
>spending to test scores in the nation, there's nowhere to go but up.
Yeah, well. Go kiss Howard Jarvis' ass one more time.
>
>>>Residents with say in zoning regs? A miracle!
>>
>>Residents do have a say. It's known as the public hearing process.
>
>I was very careful in choosing the word "say" because I agree they
>have a voice. I disagree that they have a say. Symantis maybe but
>the intent was to distinguish powerless venting from true influence.
Unfortunately, that's true. The problem is that you blame us instead
of your "elected representatives".
>
>>Unfortunately, residents can't afford to spend several hours a day
>>lobbying the politicians and proclaiming that their ideas on the
>>subject will result in JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.
>
>They aren't supposed or expected to. That's the job of planning staff
>to provide unbiased analysis. Do your job, that's all I ask.
We do. But when the planning director gets the word from the
politicians that they won't appreciate it if you recommend a project
be denied, there's not much we can do, now is there? Or do you really
expect us to be some sort of god-like figures instead of just being
people trying to get along in the world?
>
>>You'd really be surprised
>>how many planners agree with you on this - and you'd really be
>>surprised how many planners actually take part in their local planning
>>groups and have to deal with the same frustrations that you do.
>
>I agree and see it all the time. Good intentions have paved the road
>to hell, etc. I judge by results not intentions. The results have
>been poor.
Then hire some new politicians who'll translate your wishes to the
planning department.
>
>>But
>>since we work for them, we may see a bit more clearly exactly how
>>difficult it is to get a politician to do anything other than count
>>votes. My local planning group has been close to flat out told by our
>>city councilwoman that we shouldn't even bother to come to her with an
>>idea unless we can assure her that she won't lose votes from it.
>
>Actually I am not suprised at the number of fine individuals the
>"planning process" has ground up an spit out, planner and public
>alike. You mistake my disgust with the system for disgust with
>the persons involved. Inasmuch as the participants do not try to
>change or stand up to the system that is when it gets personal.
No, it gets personal when you decide to engage in nasty attacks on how
I raised a step-daughter. It's not a comment I'm likely to get past
easily and it's one that's going to color all my responses to you in
the future.
>
>>So the problem, Robert, is that you're attempting to tar all of us
>>with the same brush. That's certainly not something I'd do with
>>people from whatever profession you happen to be engaged in so I
>>really don't see why you think it's allowable with us.
>
>You are correct. Please post a list of planners that have resigned
>rather than sully their professional ethics by staying quiet over
>a bad decision that contravened their recommendation.
>You see for all your professed ethics and standards, you
>lack the strength of your convictions.
Uh huh. Easy for you to say. Please post a list of the jobs you've
left because of a professional disagreement. And quite frankly,
please don't pull this holier than thou bullshit on me again. You
don't work in my field and you don't have a single idea of what the
thinking is. And more to the point, you have no right whatsoever to
determine who gets to be ideologically pure and who doesn't. If you
don't like it, fucking run for office and push your ideas on the
public.
=Bob
John Hascall
Iowa has open enrollment. You can drive your kids clear
across the state to school if you fancy.
}Residents with say in zoning regs? A miracle!
Well. I'm a resident. I have a say. In fact, I have been studying
the draft of the complete overhaul of our Zoning (+subdivision) code
in preparation for a meeting with the city manager. Based on
past experience (e.g., with the Land Use Policy Plan) I expect
they will be very receptive any suggestions we may have. Will
we always be 100% happy with the outcome? Of course not, there
are a lot of "competing" interests to be served.
John
--
John Hascall, Software Engr. Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you
ISU Computation Center demanded are now mandatory. -Jello Biafra
mailto:jo...@iastate.edu
http://www.cc.iastate.edu/staff/systems/john/welcome.html <-- the usual crud
Colin R. Leech
Robert Coté (tech...@west.net) wrote:
> In article <34a852d4...@news.inetworld.net>, r...@inetworld.net wrote:
>>On Sun, 28 Dec 1997 12:42:58 -0800, tech...@west.net (Robert Coté) wrote:
>>>In article <34a195ae...@news.inetworld.net>, r...@inetworld.net wrote:
>>>
>>>>There's nothing to suggest that center city schools can't be as good
>>>>as burb schools.
>>>
>>>Except test scores. Except family demographics. Except environmental
>>>factors. Except resources. Except length of residence both teachers
>>>and students. Except people who convieniently forget all the factors
>>>that make it harder for inner city students to acheive. Ignore the
>>>problem like you suggest is no solution.
>>
>>No that suggests that center city schools AREN'T as good as burb
>>schools. It doesn't suggest that they CAN'T be. Please read what I
>>write, Robert.
I'm with "RCF" on this one. There is one factor in Mr. Cote's list that is
of overwhelming importance: lack of resources. Once that is fixed, the
other problems such as lack of good teachers can be addressed much more
easily. American (let's not forget _that_ qualifier) center city schools
aren't as good as the suburbs, but they could be a whole lot better than
they are.