Why Transportation is Impossible to Solve
gary baldwin
Each segment airplanes, trains, trolleys,buses, ferries and cabs are
all controlled by regulation or subsidies from different levels of
Government. As understood Government is the only recognized monopoly in
this country.
The game is to form an agency involving transportation and then get
funding, usually a grant. You then build an organization and then spend
the grant. Next you claim success and ask for another grant.
Once the public becomes accustomed to your subsidized service it's
suggest that increased tax funding be considered for their continued
success.
This is how you make nothing out of something at the expense of
others.
As you see a transportation solution is not the GOAL.
Common-cents says "Freedom without Responsibility
is an illusion".
PC
What if the departments were merged.. The way the airlines are
looking just now, AmAir could end up a reality, and Greyhound is
already in the dumps.. Merge em with Amtrak!
PC
Jym Dyer
> monopoly!
=v= That's not simple, it's simplistic. That "answer" is true
(in its way) all over the world, yet transportation issues are
solved much more satisfactorily all over the world. Clearly
the devil is in the details. (Start with the MTC, for example.)
> Each segment airplanes, trains, trolleys,buses, ferries and
> cabs are all controlled by regulation or subsidies from
> different levels of Government.
=v= Funny that you'd leave cars on roads out of that list. Or
are you one of those people who don't realize how massively
subsidized (and gummint-monopoly-controlled) that is?
<_Jym_>
gary baldwin
program and the best transportation bargain the car is number one.
I am pleased that other countries are solving their transportation
problems. Does that suggest that some monopolies are better than ours.
If so what are we doing wrong?
Jack May
"Jym Dyer" <j...@econet.org> wrote in message
news:Jym.wz1y1...@econet.org...
> =v= Funny that you'd leave cars on roads out of that list. Or
> are you one of those people who don't realize how massively
> subsidized (and gummint-monopoly-controlled) that is?
The MTC says we spend 78% of our total transportation dollars in the Bay
Area on transit which carries only a few percent of the trips.
Its hard to call the car "massively subsidized" under those conditions. It
is easy to call transit "massively subsidized" under the Bay Area's gross
overspending on transit with its small usage.
There have been detailed economic analysis of transportation modes discussed
on transportation newsgroups. The detailed economic analysis shows that
cars pay slightly more in taxes in the US than is spent on all Government
spending to support cars. Cars are a profit center for Governments.
For the high spending on transit and low spending on cars in the Bay Area,
taxes on cars are probably creating a large profit for Governments.
PC
wrote:
>> =v= Funny that you'd leave cars on roads out of that list. Or
>> are you one of those people who don't realize how massively
>> subsidized (and gummint-monopoly-controlled) that is?
>
>The MTC says we spend 78% of our total transportation dollars in the Bay
>Area on transit which carries only a few percent of the trips.
All dollars or all except federal road construction dollars?
Anyway, how much of that "transit" subsidy goes to building mammoth
car parks that get very few people onto the system at the expense of
saner and cheaper methods of moving large numbers of people on
transit?
I'd say mismanagement is more to blame than transit itself..
PC
Jack May
"gary baldwin" <common...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:23223-3E6...@storefull-2197.public.lawson.webtv.net...
> I am pleased that other countries are solving their transportation
> problems. Does that suggest that some monopolies are better than ours.
> If so what are we doing wrong?
Hang out on uk.transport for a little while and you will find other
countries like the UK are not solving their transportation problems with
transit. Transit success is largely a fairytale. The reality is far worse.
Jack May
"PC" <dev-nu...@remove.i.h.u.g.com.au> wrote in message
news:3e628879...@news.mel.ihug.com.au...
> All dollars or all except federal road construction dollars?
The article is not clear on that subject, but Federal funds are often or
always go through the MTC.
> Anyway, how much of that "transit" subsidy goes to building mammoth
> car parks that get very few people onto the system at the expense of
> saner and cheaper methods of moving large numbers of people on
> transit?
Absolutely wrong. Most of the money goes to the transit part which is about
$100M per mile for light rail and $200M per mile for BART. Transit is very
expensive and typically far more expensive per passenger mile than roads
> I'd say mismanagement is more to blame than transit itself..
In the MTC graph of transit spending percentage
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/publications/transactions/ta0902/facts.htm
you see a lot of cities are in the same situation. Its not mismanagement,
transit inherently is not a practical, cost effective solution for
transportation.
Transit also increases congestion which usually decreases air quality.
"Will stopping highway projects help air quality?
No. However, the plaintiffs in the Environmental Protection Agency lawsuits
would like to halt new road and highway projects - many of which were
approved by voters as part of transportation sales tax expenditure plans -
and shift the money to public transit. Such a move would be
counterproductive: Without planned roadway improvements, traffic congestion
will likely worsen, and congestion contributes to air pollution."
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/publications/transactions/ta0902/air.htm
PC
wrote:
>> I am pleased that other countries are solving their transportation
>> problems. Does that suggest that some monopolies are better than ours.
>> If so what are we doing wrong?
>Hang out on uk.transport for a little while and you will find other
>countries like the UK are not solving their transportation problems with
>transit. Transit success is largely a fairytale. The reality is far worse.
If by that you mean congestion charging, I hate to break it to you
pal, but Central London already had 85% of trips on Transit anyway,
now it's a little higher... Had they implemented congestion charging
onto an area that has no transit, the outcome would have been all
stick and no carrot, or in effect, just another tax..
PC
PC
wrote:
>> Anyway, how much of that "transit" subsidy goes to building mammoth
>> car parks that get very few people onto the system at the expense of
>> saner and cheaper methods of moving large numbers of people on
>> transit?
>
>Absolutely wrong. Most of the money goes to the transit part which is about
>$100M per mile for light rail and $200M per mile for BART. Transit is very
>expensive and typically far more expensive per passenger mile than roads
Absolutely wrong.. It does not cost hundreds of millions per mile to
lay down track.. More like 1 million per mile, tops.. How much does
2 miles of steel rail, 1600 cross-ties and about five thousand cubic
yards of blue metal or whatever you use for ballast costs? Probably
about half a million per mile, maybe 750k.. Factor in labor and plant
hire, and you get up around a million.. Double that for double track,
and double it again for signalling..
After all that, you factor in buying the real estate, then factor in
things like station buildings, new trains at 2-3m for a loco and 1-2m
for a car, or about 1-3m for a new LRV, and on top of all that, you
guessed it, several multimillion dollar mammoth car parks at every
station, then add 200% for kickbacks, job perpetuation programs, and
miscellaneous corruption (equivalent for all projects, road or
transit) and then you get figures resembling the above..
>Transit also increases congestion which usually decreases air quality.
And the absence of transit would involve even larger increases in
traffic, which would decrease air quality even further..
Meanwhile, good transit (something you're really not accustomed to
anywhere in the US, or even here in Aus) does actually decrease
overall emissions.. You'll get that way in about a century at the
rate you're going..
>Without planned roadway improvements, traffic congestion
>will likely worsen, and congestion contributes to air pollution."
Correct, but only to a point.. At the point a road is full, pollution
levels don't go any higher, and if anything, if you know you'll be
motionless for more than 5 minutes, people can be coaxed to start
switching off their engines and pollution levels can actually go down
as a result..
PC
Jym Dyer
> in the Bay Area on transit which carries only a few percent of
> the trips.
=v= That is completely inaccurate.
<_Jym_>
Richard Mlynarik
"MTC says" and "completely inaccurate" are synonymous.
The completely corrupt apparatchiks who control that organization
are interested only in preserving the status quo and in preserving
their positions within it, and are prefectly capable of making
pie charts and press releases which show that There Is No Alternative.
Steven Anderson
> In the MTC graph of transit spending percentage
>
> http://www.mtc.ca.gov/publications/transactions/ta0902/facts.htm
>
> you see a lot of cities are in the same situation. Its not mismanagement,
> transit inherently is not a practical, cost effective solution for
> transportation.
The graph you reference claims that, over the next 25 years, 77% of
transportation funds in the Bay Area will be spent on public transit.
The text goes on to say that only 4% will be spent on highway lane
additions. That's over the next 25 years, not over the last 25 years,
so, of course, it doesn't show that mass transit is not cost
effective, all it shows is that lots of cities are planning on
spending a large percentage of their transportation funds over the next
25 years on mass transit.
One of the reasons the graph is so lopsided for the Bay Area, is that
MTC has long range plans for many rail projects (see Bay Area
Transportation Blueprint -- Phased Implementation Plan, Transit
Improvements at
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/publications/pip/transit.htm),including Bart to
Warm Springs (and beyond). The only long range plans for highway
improvements (see http://www.mtc.ca.gov/publications/pip/highway.htm)
are to support the "HOV Gap Closures to Support Rapid Bus Program and
Carpooling" and "Other Highway Projects/ Bicycle Lane Gap Closures".
The first is probably included in MTC's mass transit numbers, the
latter has no cost estimate, so it wouldn't be included in graph.
This graph made me question what's being spent now.
Take a look at the MTC's 2003 Transportation Improvement Program
(TIP), which is a federally required report on all Bay Area
transportation projects that receive federal funding, which is
available at
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/publications/tip/2003/2003_TIP_Guide.pdf. In
Figure 2 you'll see that 47% of the planned spending is for highway
maintenance and rehabilitation, 21% is for highway expansion, 2% is
for local road expansion, and 1% is for local road maintenance.
That's a total of 71% for highways and local roads. Mass transit, on
the other hand, will be getting 13% for expansion, 8% for maintenance
and rehabilitation, and 2% for mass transit operation. So, road
spending - 71%, mass transit spending, 23%.
Just to restate - in the current year, highways got more than 3 times
the funding of mass transit.
Is it any wonder that mass transit in the Bay Area is not as effective
as it could be?
Steve
--
Steve Anderson
ste...@member.fsf.org
Jack May
"Steven Anderson" <steven....@oracle.com> wrote in message
news:m3zno9c...@jtdevua-pc1.us.oracle.com...
> This graph made me question what's being spent now.
I was in a SVMG meeting with a MTC official about two months ago where I
brought up this question. He was pitching raising bridge tolls, taxes,
etc. to pay for transportation. I said people would be livid placing taxes
on the more than 90% of people that drive to fund the few percent people
that use transit.
He confirmed that present spending in the Bay Area is in the 80% range for
transit.
For those billions we spent on transit over the years, the census says there
has been no increase in the percentage of people that use transit over the
last 20 years.
In a SVMG tele-conference with Robert Oaks in Torlakson's office this week,
I asked why should they raise gas taxes, as they are proposing, to fund
failed transit. The response was yes the census show no percentage increase
in transit usage for the last 20 years, but because of population growth the
number of users has increased which makes it not a failure.
By Torlakson's definition, spending billions to get one additional person in
a growing population to use transit is a success. This is of course a total
bull shit argument given by idiots trying to hide their monumental failures.
It shows that Torlakson has no mental capabilities to see problems and
correct those problems. He is mainly in a cover his ass mode.
Oaks then tried to justify spending billions on transit because a percent or
so of people don't drive. Another amazingly stupid statement. It would
obviously be far cheaper to provide them with a chaffer driven car (well
maybe taxi rides).
Anyway you see the depravity and stupidity of our transportation people.
Things are changing rapidly at this time. There is at least some hope these
people will eventually be removed from power and be on the street begging
for spare change.
Richard Mlynarik
> I was in a SVMG meeting with a MTC official [...]
I'm surprised some sort of information black hole didn't
form as a result of this terrifying conjuction. Thaory
predicts that that much mendacity confined within a single room
should lead to the formation of an inescapable truth-sucking
vortex large enough to cover the entire area between Fremont and
San Jose, with bizarre effects which cannot be explained using
non-relatavistic economics visible as far as Lake Merritt in
Oakland or in Sacramento. It is believed that no financial
information obeying any of the classical laws of Newtonian
arithmetic can ever emerge from such a vortex.
Come to think of it..................
gary baldwin
appreciated.
If you note the relationship of total dollars spent on cars vs. that
spent on public transportation you will know why the car is the Best
Bargain.
Until we face the fact that Government does not fund transportation
"fairly" we will not approach a true solution.
Steven Anderson
> "Steven Anderson" <steven....@oracle.com> wrote in message
> news:m3zno9c...@jtdevua-pc1.us.oracle.com...
>
> > This graph made me question what's being spent now.
>
> I was in a SVMG meeting with a MTC official about two months ago where I
> brought up this question. He was pitching raising bridge tolls, taxes,
> etc. to pay for transportation. I said people would be livid placing taxes
> on the more than 90% of people that drive to fund the few percent people
> that use transit.
>
> He confirmed that present spending in the Bay Area is in the 80% range for
> transit.
Sorry, that official is wrong. If that were the case, the MTC would
get taken to task by the federal government for filing an fraudulent
TIP report.
If you can show me some proof that my numbers are wrong, then I'll be
very interested. A non-public conversation with some unknown MTC
official at some random SVMG meeting really has no value.
> For those billions we spent on transit over the years, the census
> says there has been no increase in the percentage of people that use
> transit over the last 20 years.
That's a bad argument for your point.
Let's replace the word transit with highways in that paragraph -
"For those billions we spent on highways over the years, the census
says there has been no increase in the percentage of people that use
highways over the last 20 years."
And remember, once again, at least in the last year, spending levels
on highways was three times what it is on transit.
So, even though we spend 3 times as much on highways as on mass
transit, highways are just barely keeping up. Sounds to me like we
should spend more money on mass transit, since, dollar for dollar,
it's three times as effective.
Hmm, maybe that's the reason why all those cities listed in the graph
that you pointed to have decided to spend a significant portion of
their available funds over the next 25 years on mass transit. I think
that's more likely than a conspiracy of ineptitude to cheat you out of
more roads to drive on is.
bikerider7
> "Steven Anderson" <steven....@oracle.com> wrote in message
> news:m3zno9c...@jtdevua-pc1.us.oracle.com...
>
> > This graph made me question what's being spent now.
>
> I was in a SVMG meeting with a MTC official about two months ago where I
> brought up this question. He was pitching raising bridge tolls, taxes,
> etc. to pay for transportation. I said people would be livid placing taxes
> on the more than 90% of people that drive to fund the few percent people
> that use transit.
>
> He confirmed that present spending in the Bay Area is in the 80% range for
> transit.
While it is true that there is literally billions being pissed away on
idiotic transit projects, this 70-80% figure that keeps coming out
of the MTC -- which has been published in their propaganda
and in response to a recent lawsuit -- is very misleading.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong because their propaganda does
not seem to give any details how that number was derived, but from what
I can piece together they are looking at only New Projects in
the 20-year RTP, which represents less than 5% of the $80
billion that is going to be spent (the other 95% is simply
maintaining existing roads/highways and transit operating expenses).
The problem with relying on the RTP is that it is mainly a work
of fiction. The new project list is just a wish list. There are a lot
of things in there which have no identified funding source. This means
that the MTC can count things like the regional bike plan,
Caltrain DTX, etc as a non-highway expense while actively fighting
to divert funding from those kinds of things. And if the past
is any indication, it is safe to say there will be a lot of new
highway lanes built which are not mentioned at all in the RTP.
>
>
> For those billions we spent on transit over the years, the census says there
> has been no increase in the percentage of people that use transit over the
> last 20 years.
Actually, the census says percent transit use has declined.
Orval Fairbairn
Steven Anderson <steven....@oracle.com> wrote:
If we spend 3x on highwas as for mass transit and mass transit accounts
for only 5% of transportation usage, t means that mass transit is 57x
as expensive as highways! Wouldn't we then say that mass transit a
resoundong failure?
> Hmm, maybe that's the reason why all those cities listed in the graph
> that you pointed to have decided to spend a significant portion of
> their available funds over the next 25 years on mass transit. I think
> that's more likely than a conspiracy of ineptitude to cheat you out of
> more roads to drive on is.
No, actually, it is a means of rewarding political cronies with vast,
useless public works projects, at our expense, of course.
--
To get random signatures put text files into a folder called "Random Signatures" into your Preferences folder.
PC
<orfairbairn...@earthjunk.net> wrote:
>> So, even though we spend 3 times as much on highways as on mass
>> transit, highways are just barely keeping up. Sounds to me like we
>> should spend more money on mass transit, since, dollar for dollar,
>> it's three times as effective.
>If we spend 3x on highwas as for mass transit and mass transit accounts
>for only 5% of transportation usage, t means that mass transit is 57x
>as expensive as highways! Wouldn't we then say that mass transit a
>resoundong failure?
Hardly - the cost of highways is not the full cost of private auto
transit.. There's the cost of local road expansion to account for
increased traffic from expanded highways, the cost of all the parking
lots that business has to pay for but doesn't need to for transit
riders, the cost of the vehicle itself, something transit riders in
areas where you can get by without a car don't have to pay for, the
cost of all the extra hospitals. ambulances and police to deal with
inevitable auto accidents (meanwhile transit accidents occasioning
injury to transit passengers are minimal and close to nonexistant),
meaning holders of hospital insurance who don't use private autos
effectively subsidize those that do.. Should I go on?
PC
Steven Anderson
@storefull-2192.public.lawson.webtv.net:
> Steve Anderson's use of logic and ability to research his data is
> appreciated.
It's surprisingly easy to get good numbers on the Web, and I encourage
everyone to include links to that kind of information when discussing value
and costs.
> If you note the relationship of total dollars spent on cars vs. that
> spent on public transportation you will know why the car is the Best
> Bargain.
I would say that the "Best Bargain" has to be decided based on more than
traditional cost per person mile figures. Fuel, staffing, repairs, new
facilities, new equipment, direct environmental impact, secondary
environmental impact, job creation, quality of life, tourism, lives lost
using the transportation, international relations, etc., could all be valid
things to include in a cost/benefit analysis.
What should we include when deciding which transportation option is the
"Best Bargain"? Does it even matter? Perhaps rather than trying to
convince each other, or our government representatives, to make things more
fair, we need to understand how each method of transportation fits together
to make our area more livable.
Steve
Steve Anderson
ste...@member.fsf.org
Orval Fairbairn
dev-nu...@remove.i.h.u.g.com.au (PC) wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Mar 2003 19:54:11 GMT, Orval Fairbairn
> <orfairbairn...@earthjunk.net> wrote:
>
> >> So, even though we spend 3 times as much on highways as on mass
> >> transit, highways are just barely keeping up. Sounds to me like we
> >> should spend more money on mass transit, since, dollar for dollar,
> >> it's three times as effective.
>
> >If we spend 3x on highwas as for mass transit and mass transit accounts
> >for only 5% of transportation usage, t means that mass transit is 57x
> >as expensive as highways! Wouldn't we then say that mass transit a
> >resoundong failure?
>
> Hardly - the cost of highways is not the full cost of private auto
> transit.. There's the cost of local road expansion to account for
> increased traffic from expanded highways,
Already accounted for above.
> the cost of all the parking
> lots that business has to pay for but doesn't need to for transit
> riders,
Part of the cost of doing business, therefore irrelevant to the
discussion.
>the cost of the vehicle itself,
The vehicles are useful for other things than simply travelling between
two predetermined points. They allow you to define where and when you go
-- especially to places which transit does not now, and probably never
will, serve.
> something transit riders in
> areas where you can get by without a car don't have to pay for,
Very few people wish to limit themselves to public transit options --
because it takes them to so few interesting places.
> the
> cost of all the extra hospitals. ambulances and police to deal with
> inevitable auto accidents (meanwhile transit accidents occasioning
> injury to transit passengers are minimal and close to nonexistant),
How about all the people transit hits?
> meaning holders of hospital insurance who don't use private autos
> effectively subsidize those that do.. Should I go on?
A very limited minority of the populace. You are advocating an
expensive, and very limited, replacement for a less-expensive, an far
more versatile, means of transportation.
You may go now.
PC
<orfairbairn...@earthjunk.net> wrote:
>> Hardly - the cost of highways is not the full cost of private auto
>> transit.. There's the cost of local road expansion to account for
>> increased traffic from expanded highways,
>Already accounted for above.
It's still a cost, and from a planning perspective, there are better
alternatives..
>> the cost of all the parking
>> lots that business has to pay for but doesn't need to for transit
>> riders,
>
>Part of the cost of doing business, therefore irrelevant to the
>discussion.
It's still a cost, and it's biased toward motorists.. Shopping
centers really should give discounts to anyone who can prove they
arrived at the centre that day on transit.. Or charge for parking,
one or the other..
>>the cost of the vehicle itself,
>
>The vehicles are useful for other things than simply travelling between
>two predetermined points. They allow you to define where and when you go
>-- especially to places which transit does not now, and probably never
>will, serve.
Aah, probably never will.. Are we talking from the user's perspective
or the planner's perspective? Is it cheaper to build another few
roads or just make the transit system serve trips from anywhere to
anywhere? You'd be surprised how little more it costs to turn really
bad transit into really good transit.. Once you own the trains, the
buses, have the stations, the bus stops all done up, pay for station
staff, have an effective multimode fare system (OK, the bay area
doesn't, but it'd be fairly easy to implement), the cost of a bus on
the road vs a bus sitting idle in a depot 20 hours a day is minimal,
it's mostly the cost of another human and a tiny bit of extra
maintenance, plus some diesel..
Now, while the two programs are run by separate govt levels, how much
would someone on unemployment get vs the cost of employing them to
drive a bus? The cost is still there..
And another thing - how much of the income of said additional bus
driver go straight back to the relevant authority through taxes?
>> something transit riders in
>> areas where you can get by without a car don't have to pay for,
>Very few people wish to limit themselves to public transit options --
>because it takes them to so few interesting places.
More would if the service was genuinely good.. Interestingly enough,
I haven't owned a vehicle in over two years, and even then I only ever
owned motorcycles.. I really don't like being stuck in traffic,
unless I'm not the driver and I have something interesting to read..
>> the
>> cost of all the extra hospitals. ambulances and police to deal with
>> inevitable auto accidents (meanwhile transit accidents occasioning
>> injury to transit passengers are minimal and close to nonexistant),
>
>How about all the people transit hits?
Statistically negligible compared to private autos..
>> meaning holders of hospital insurance who don't use private autos
>> effectively subsidize those that do.. Should I go on?
>
>A very limited minority of the populace. You are advocating an
>expensive, and very limited, replacement for a less-expensive, an far
>more versatile, means of transportation.
Expensive perhaps, but not much more expensive than what you're
already paying for... And the benefits to your community from the
extra jobs should also be taken into account..
PC
gary baldwin
The cars position of "Best Bargain" is proven by the consumers vote.
No one is forced to use the car or public transportation, it is a
choice!
The majority choose the car. Why?
Could it be that indirect costs are paid for by the general public?
Who pays for the streets and their maintance - the property owner. Who
pays for street lights and traffic control - the property owner. Who
pays for pollution control - the General Fund (State Tax). Who pays for
most free parking - the State or a business owner.
When you decide to drive a car the direct cost is for; car purchase,
depreciation and maintance,fuel (small tax), insurance and license fee
which is a small percent of the total.
Ask most people what car costs are and they will say 36 or 37 cents a
mile. Next ask them what it costs them to use public transportation and
get a accurate dollar figure per trip. This shows that the true cost and
the perceived cost are hidden by uneven benefits and subsidies.
Bill Zaumen
common...@webtv.net (gary baldwin) wrote:
> Who pays for the streets and their maintance - the property owner.
It is really more complicated. Local streets tend to be paid for
by property owners, with gas taxes covering (or nearly covering) the
cost of freeways and similar highways.
In purely residential areas, charging through property taxes makes
sense: the streets get relatively little traffic, but the owners
need that access even if they don't drive (otherwise you couldn't
get fire trucks in there). Of course, most owners have cars,
or want to have service vehicles or taxi cabs show up occcassionally.
Bill
--
As an anti-spam measure, my email address is only provided in a GIF
file. Please see <http://home.pacbell.net/zaumen/email.gif>.
Steven Anderson
> Reply to Steve Anderson's "Best Bargain" comments;
> The cars position of "Best Bargain" is proven by the consumers vote.
> No one is forced to use the car or public transportation, it is a
> choice!
> The majority choose the car. Why?
There could be a million reasons why people choose to use personal
vehicles rather than mass transit.
* Cars are status symbols
* Lack of awareness of alternatives
* Govt. and corporate actions that emphasis personal vehicles
and/or make using mass transit more difficult
* Convenience
* Lack of options (no mass transit available that meets their
needs)
* Fear (of violence, dirtiness, lateness, ...)
etc., etc.
In many cases, throughout our society, the majority of people don't
use the "Best Bargain". The personal computer is a great example.
Most people use a PC with Windows installed, even though they can get
a cheaper, more powerful computer with a free OS like Linux or BSD
installed on it. Why? Comfort level, training, illegal actions on
Microsoft's part, lack of awareness of options, perceptions of
quality, etc. The same is true of long distance phone service, cell
phones, stereo equipment, the list could go on and on.
So, just because more people use cars than mass transit does not mean
cars are the "Best Bargain" in transit.
> Could it be that indirect costs are paid for by the general public?
I don't think I understand your point. Is it that the majority of
people drive a car because they know they pay to use it, so they use a
car so they don't waste their money? Like the habit some have of
eating all the food on their plate at a restaurant, even though it's
too much food for comfort, just because they have paid for it? If so,
that's a bad argument. If people drive because they are already
paying to make driving cheaper and easier, let's stop making them pay
for that.
If you have some other point, I'm not following it. Can your restate
it?
Jack May
> There could be a million reasons why people choose to use personal
> vehicles rather than mass transit.
>
> * Cars are status symbols
> * Lack of awareness of alternatives
> * Govt. and corporate actions that emphasis personal vehicles
> and/or make using mass transit more difficult
> * Convenience
> * Lack of options (no mass transit available that meets their
> needs)
> * Fear (of violence, dirtiness, lateness, ...)
>
> etc., etc.
I talk to a lot of people about transportation as part of my representation
of my company on the SVMG.
Only one reason comes up almost every time. Transit is too slow compared to
a car. People, especially in a high income area, value their time and will
choose the fastest mode of transportation. Cost is measured in time for
most people.
> Most people use a PC with Windows installed, even though they can get
> a cheaper, more powerful computer with a free OS like Linux or BSD
> installed on it. Why? Comfort level, training, illegal actions on
> Microsoft's part, lack of awareness of options, perceptions of
> quality, etc. The same is true of long distance phone service, cell
> phones, stereo equipment, the list could go on and on.
People don't chose Linux because it is too expensive in time to learn a new
system. That makes Linux unaffordable.
I have a lot of friends that use Linux, but it is mainly a hobby OS not a
work OS. From the experience with my friends, Linux requires too much time
to get things done.
The Internet kills Linux for most people because they have to exchange files
that almost everyone else can open with no or few problems. That means
Windows.
A new version of Unix is a doomed way to combat Microsoft. With the
Internet, the OS is far less important than the file exchange formats.
If the same people that are pushing Linux spent their time developing and
getting open formats adopted by society, they might even have a chance of
getting a greater share of the market for Linux.
Of course Linux would still have the problem of being user hostile for most
people.
Bill Zaumen
<jac...@attbii.com> wrote:
> "Steven Anderson" <steven....@oracle.com> wrote in message
> news:m3el5e6...@jtdevua-pc1.us.oracle.com...
> Only one reason comes up almost every time. Transit is too slow compared to
> a car. People, especially in a high income area, value their time and will
> choose the fastest mode of transportation. Cost is measured in time for
> most people.
That's a good reason for making public transportation faster, actually.
What we have now is too slow, measured end-to-end, but we could change
that if we wanted to, at least between selected areas.
> People don't chose Linux because it is too expensive in time to learn a new
> system. That makes Linux unaffordable.
>
> I have a lot of friends that use Linux, but it is mainly a hobby OS not a
> work OS. From the experience with my friends, Linux requires too much time
> to get things done.
>
> The Internet kills Linux for most people because they have to exchange files
> that almost everyone else can open with no or few problems. That means
> Windows.
What are you talking about? I've used Unix on both the Arpanet and the
Internet, starting in the late 70s. To exchange files, you can either use
email, FTP, or HTTP. All of them work just fine. Linux is pretty similar
to Unix from a user's standpoint. MacOS 10 is also basically Unix, with
Apple's GUI instead of X Windows (which existed well before Microsoft
appropriated Windows as a name for its products.)
If you have a problem with some file, just bounce it back to whomever
sent it or throw it in the trash---that works fine for me :-).
> A new version of Unix is a doomed way to combat Microsoft. With the
> Internet, the OS is far less important than the file exchange formats.
Actually, it is very foolish to keep anything important in Microsoft-
proprietary formats: all your work is then held hostage by that one
company. I've read about people losing access to documents they wrote
10 years ago because the versions of Word/Whatever used to produce the
documents are no longer available. Meanwhile, I have LaTeX files
from the mid 80s that I can still use today. While you have to type
in directives like "\section{Introduction}" to format it, the
document itself is plain ordinary ASCII text, so you can read the thing
years later.
BTW, the current star-office formats are XML formats compressed using
'zip,' so you are not locked in, at least in terms of being able to
recover what you wrote.
Also, there is in fact an effort going on to standardize document
formats.
> Of course Linux would still have the problem of being user hostile for most
> people.
I don't find it particularly hostile.
John David Galt
>> The cars position of "Best Bargain" is proven by the consumers vote.
>> No one is forced to use the car or public transportation, it is a
>> choice!
>> The majority choose the car. Why?
> There could be a million reasons why people choose to use personal
> vehicles rather than mass transit.
>
> * Cars are status symbols
> * Lack of awareness of alternatives
> * Govt. and corporate actions that emphasis personal vehicles
> and/or make using mass transit more difficult
> * Convenience
> * Lack of options (no mass transit available that meets their
> needs)
> * Fear (of violence, dirtiness, lateness, ...)
>
> etc., etc.
Those are trivia. People drive because it allows us to economize our time
and our personal energy enormously, in addition to the huge positive
economic externalities it brings. The car is man's greatest enabling
technology.
David desJardins
> Those are trivia. People drive because it allows us to economize our
> time and our personal energy enormously, in addition to the huge
> positive economic externalities it brings. The car is man's greatest
> enabling technology.
I would have thought that you would rank the gun first. Since it's the
tool to make other people toe the line and let you use your other
"enabling technologies".
David desJardins
Steven Anderson
> "Steven Anderson" <steven....@oracle.com> wrote in message
> news:m3el5e6...@jtdevua-pc1.us.oracle.com...
>
> > There could be a million reasons why people choose to use personal
> > vehicles rather than mass transit.
[snip]
> > etc., etc.
>
> I talk to a lot of people about transportation as part of my representation
> of my company on the SVMG.
>
> Only one reason comes up almost every time. Transit is too slow compared to
> a car. People, especially in a high income area, value their time and will
> choose the fastest mode of transportation. Cost is measured in time for
> most people.
As Bill Zaumen said, if that's the problem, let's work on making mass
transit faster and changing people's perceptions of their time.
I used to drive to work. It was 45 minutes each way on a good day.
That was 45 minutes where I couldn't do anything else except inch
through traffic. Now I take MUNI and Caltrain. It takes about 80
minutes each way. Yup, 25 minutes more. Each way. But during that
time I get 45 minutes of high quality time to read my email, write for
my job, prepare for meetings, learn new software, etc. I'm saving
time. Instead of wasting 90 minutes a day driving, I waste 50 minutes
getting back and forth to the train.
Guess what? I sleep later now. I leave work earlier. I'm the most
prepared person at my morning meetings. I also don't have to deal
with crazy traffic situations and arrive at work spent from
irritation. It's really nice. Thank you Caltrain.
Yet I still get questions from people asking me how I can waste that
much time commuting.
Let's not get into a Linux/Windows/MacOS debate. I use them all and I
think they all have strengths and weaknesses. I probably should have
used a less contentious example. The point I was making, and one your
comments support, is that the "Best Bargain" isn't always the one that
people choose.
Other operating systems are cheaper and/or easier to use, yet most
people use Windows. Why? Your points are cost to learn something new
and file format issues. So, non-Microsoft OS's are trying to solve
those problems. We should do the same with transit.
If transportation time is the number one reason people drive rather
than take transit, then the focus should be on decreasing the time to
get from point A to point B.
Hmm, guess what? Caltrain's doing that. So is BART. So is MUNI. So
are all the other mass transit agencies.
And it's (usually) cheaper to do speed up mass transit that it is to
make it faster for people to drive their cars from A to B. Caltrain
is a perfect example. It's costing $110 million to upgrade Caltrain
to decrease travel time between San Francisco and San Jose from 90
minutes to 45 minutes. It cost $160M just to add the extra lanes on
101 from 3rd to Millbrae. Did that decrease the trip time from San
Francisco to San Jose by any significant amount?
I don't want to get bogged down in a thread where we're basically
saying "My way is better than yours", so let's get back to my previous
question - what should we consider when deciding which type of
transportation is the "Best Bargain"? Is there such a thing?
Jack May
> I used to drive to work. It was 45 minutes each way on a good day.
> That was 45 minutes where I couldn't do anything else except inch
> through traffic. Now I take MUNI and Caltrain. It takes about 80
> minutes each way. Yup, 25 minutes more. Each way. But during that
> time I get 45 minutes of high quality time to read my email, write for
> my job, prepare for meetings, learn new software, etc. I'm saving
> time. Instead of wasting 90 minutes a day driving, I waste 50 minutes
> getting back and forth to the train.
>
> Guess what? I sleep later now. I leave work earlier. I'm the most
> prepared person at my morning meetings. I also don't have to deal
> with crazy traffic situations and arrive at work spent from
> irritation. It's really nice. Thank you Caltrain.
Guess what, companies that are developing for ITS are going to be building
systems for hands off driving while you still go the speed limit (or
faster). So people are going to get to work much faster than now and still
do their work in the car to add more hours to the day.
There is a big market for such cars so the companies are pushing hard in
this direction.
A lot of people talk about working on the train or bus. Most people give
up this idea with in a week when reality sets in. I believe what you say,
but I think you are in the minority.
> Yet I still get questions from people asking me how I can waste that
> much time commuting.
>
> Let's not get into a Linux/Windows/MacOS debate. I use them all and I
> think they all have strengths and weaknesses. I probably should have
> used a less contentious example. The point I was making, and one your
> comments support, is that the "Best Bargain" isn't always the one that
> people choose.
>
> Other operating systems are cheaper and/or easier to use, yet most
> people use Windows. Why? Your points are cost to learn something new
> and file format issues. So, non-Microsoft OS's are trying to solve
> those problems. We should do the same with transit.
>
> If transportation time is the number one reason people drive rather
> than take transit, then the focus should be on decreasing the time to
> get from point A to point B.
>
> Hmm, guess what? Caltrain's doing that. So is BART. So is MUNI. So
> are all the other mass transit agencies.
The typical trip time increase is a factor of 2 to 4 even according to the
transit driver's union. That is also our experience with light rail between
our offices in Sunnyvale and our offices in San Jose. Both offices are in
easy walking distance of the light rail but no body uses it because of the
very long trip time (25 min car, 90-105 min light rail not including
walking time)
I have seen a lot of transit proposals. None of them are anywhere near
providing the needed speed up.
> And it's (usually) cheaper to do speed up mass transit that it is to
> make it faster for people to drive their cars from A to B. Caltrain
> is a perfect example. It's costing $110 million to upgrade Caltrain
> to decrease travel time between San Francisco and San Jose from 90
> minutes to 45 minutes. It cost $160M just to add the extra lanes on
> 101 from 3rd to Millbrae. Did that decrease the trip time from San
> Francisco to San Jose by any significant amount?
The ITS cost to speed up will be a tiny fraction of road building cost to
provide much higher improvements in speed. The Caltrains example is an
anomaly because it took a simple fix to correct a really dumb design. Its
not that simple or cheap for other systems.
Bill Zaumen
<jac...@attbii.com> wrote:
> The typical trip time increase is a factor of 2 to 4 even according to the
> transit driver's union. That is also our experience with light rail between
> our offices in Sunnyvale and our offices in San Jose. Both offices are in
> easy walking distance of the light rail but no body uses it because of the
> very long trip time (25 min car, 90-105 min light rail not including
> walking time)
Light rail in SJ is very slow because it follows a circuitous route and makes
frequent stops. I'm not sure it it even gets priority at traffic
signals. In any case, those a design choices.
> > And it's (usually) cheaper to do speed up mass transit that it is to
> > make it faster for people to drive their cars from A to B. Caltrain
> > is a perfect example. It's costing $110 million to upgrade Caltrain
> > to decrease travel time between San Francisco and San Jose from 90
> > minutes to 45 minutes. It cost $160M just to add the extra lanes on
> > 101 from 3rd to Millbrae. Did that decrease the trip time from San
> > Francisco to San Jose by any significant amount?
>
> The ITS cost to speed up will be a tiny fraction of road building cost to
> provide much higher improvements in speed. The Caltrains example is an
> anomaly because it took a simple fix to correct a really dumb design. Its
> not that simple or cheap for other systems.
The cost of an ITS system is currently unkown, and includes the cost
of the control system on individual vehicles, plus potentially
high per-vehicle maintenance costs to maintain adequate safety
levels.
Also, there are proposals for automatic vehicles that run on tracks,
but that are routed individually, that could be used to go from
rail stations to nearby destinations without the waits associated
with busses and the need for multiple transfers. I saw a talk on
one proposed system a few years ago in Palo Alto, sponsored by
the transportation department.
Perhaps those types of transit systems are the ones that should be
compared to an ITS system, given that both are still in the research
stage. It is hardly fair to compare current rail systems to some
system that does not yet exist, just as it would not be fair to compare
the cars we had in the early 1900s to the fastest trains we have today.
Bill
Jym Dyer
> and our personal energy enormously, in addition to the
> huge positive economic externalities it brings.
=v= *Positive* externalities? I'm reminded of the line from
_The_Princess_Bride_: "You keep using that word. I don't
think it means what you think it means."
=v= People drive because it *seems* to "economize" time so
long as one doesn't add up all the costs -- in other words,
so long as one pointedly *ignores* the externalities.
> The car is man's greatest enabling technology.
=v= Agreed. Of course, I'm thinking of "enabling" in the
sense of facilitating addictions.
<_Jym_>
Alison Chaiken
"Jack May" <jac...@attbii.com> writes:
> A lot of people talk about working on the train or bus. Most people
> give up this idea with in a week when reality sets in. I believe
> what you say, but I think you are in the minority.
I do work on the bus (in the morning at least; on the way home I goof
off). I am in the minority, but that's because most other riders are
sleeping. Far be it from me to say that catching a nap is a bad use
of people's time. There are days when I can't wait to get on the bus
so I can pass out.
Basically I agree with Steve that transit is a better use of my time
than driving. I arrive at work relaxed, in the mood to hit the ground
running, with my mind full of ideas about work. In the afternoon I
listen to loud music and catch up on my leisure reading. All I can
figure is that folks who resent the time spent on transit don't like
to read.
> The typical trip time increase is a factor of 2 to 4 even according
> to the transit driver's union.
I find that surprising. I had two bus methods to get to work.
Carpooling to work in the morning takes 40 minutes. Driving without
carpooling is about 35 minutes. Bus method 1 (drive to bus stop +
bus) takes about 50 minutes. Bus method 2 (walk half mile to bus
stop, take bus 1, change to bus 2) takes an hour and 20 minutes. This
second method gives Jack his factor of two, but assuredly a long walk
plus two buses is a worst-case scenario for most commuters.
--
Alison Chaiken <aliso...@dailyplanet.wsrcc.com>
(650) 236-2231 [daytime] http://www.wsrcc.com/alison/
Everywhere the stifling mass of night swamps the bright nervous day,
and puts it out. -- Philip Larkin
John David Galt
> I don't want to get bogged down in a thread where we're basically
> saying "My way is better than yours", so let's get back to my previous
> question - what should we consider when deciding which type of
> transportation is the "Best Bargain"? Is there such a thing?
There isn't any objective right answer. Each person must decide which mode
is best based on his own values. But for this to work, we first must take
away the huge subsidies from gas taxes to transit, so that each mode pays
its own way.
David MR
45 minutes plus 25 minutes = 70 minutes, not 80 minutes. 80 minutes less 45
minutes equals 35 minute or 70 minutes a day wasted.
It's fine if you can use Caltrain and muni. Mass transit is good if you
live and work fairly close to a train service. By close, I mean within about
a 5 minute walk or drive to the station.
--
David R.
http://home.attbi.com/~damiross
http://www.secure-skies.org/
Steven Anderson
And around and around we go.
On March 6, Gary Baldwin (common...@webtv.net) said
"If you note the relationship of total dollars spent on cars
vs. that spent on public transportation you will know why the car is
the Best Bargain.
Until we face the fact that Government does not fund transportation
"fairly" we will not approach a true solution."
My question for Gary, and for anyone that's willing to discuss the
topic is what do we, as a society, consider when discussing the costs
and benefits of the various means of transportation? Until we can
answer that, we'll just continue the discussion with points that say
"My way is better/cheaper (because I use these measures)".
So, Mr. Galt, Mr. May, Mr. Zaumen, Mr. Baldwin, you've all been quite
active in this thread. I ask each of you to tell us what you consider
when trying to decide which form of transit is the best bargain for
our society? If you're only interested in discussing what's best for
you at this moment, post that information. I find that much less
interesting, but any information helps.
Anyone else that wants to chime in, please do. Let's talk about
value and costs.
Steven Anderson
"David MR" <dami...@attbi.com> writes:
> As one who attended high school outside of California, may I point out that
> 45 minutes plus 25 minutes = 70 minutes, not 80 minutes. 80 minutes less 45
> minutes equals 35 minute or 70 minutes a day wasted.
Thanks for pointing out my typo. I should have written "It takes
about 70 minutes each way", not 80.
I'm still saving 40 minutes a day by taking the train because 45
minutes less 25 minutes equals 20 minutes, or 40 minutes saved a day.
Steve
Scott Mace
> My question for Gary, and for anyone that's willing to discuss the
> topic is what do we, as a society, consider when discussing the costs
> and benefits of the various means of transportation? Until we can
> answer that, we'll just continue the discussion with points that say
> "My way is better/cheaper (because I use these measures)".
It is absolutely impossible to discuss transportation choices without
talking about society's dictates regarding land use. It is the one area
where Big (and little) Government goes virtually unquestioned, even by the
most radical libertarians such as Galt.
Scott Mace
--
Please sign a petition to charge for parking at all BART stations:
http://www.petitiononline.com/bart1/petition.html
"You want to build a school, it's bad. A new bus facility is bad. A bike
path is a 'bike freeway,' and a four-story affordable housing project is a
'skyscraper.' . . . The future could look like Carmel, a nice place with no
services that nobody can afford to live in." -- Mike Rotkin, UC Santa Cruz
lecturer, SF Chronicle, Aug. 22, 2001
"In the past decade, highway construction in major American cities outpaced
population growth, and still congestion worsened-and worsened most precisely
where the most new roads and highways were built." - U.S. News & World
Report, May 28, 2001
"If environmentalists were leading the way, they would be doing more
advocacy work in our urban centers, marching for new buildings. Instead,
they have been leading the NIMBY wars." - James Howard Kunzler,
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/oo/curmudgeon/index_Kunstler.html
Blog: http://urbification.blogspot.com/
Jack May
> So, Mr. Galt, Mr. May, Mr. Zaumen, Mr. Baldwin, you've all been quite
> active in this thread. I ask each of you to tell us what you consider
> when trying to decide which form of transit is the best bargain for
> our society? If you're only interested in discussing what's best for
> you at this moment, post that information. I find that much less
> interesting, but any information helps.
For me there are two parts to this answer, personal and planning for Silicon
Valley.
My personal decision, like that of almost everyone else, is based on
minimum time to get my destination. For me that is mainly on a motorcycle
to use the diamond lane and to lane split.
The secondary part of the decision is the purpose of the trip and the
excitement level. If the roads are oil slick from rain or I am shopping, I
use the car. For excitement in life, the bias is towards the motorcycle.
The planning part is from my duties to represent my employer on the
Transportation Policy Board of the SVMG. There my goal is to reduce
congestion and make travel as pleasant as possible for my fellow employees
within the constraints of the realistic amount of money that can be spent by
Governments on transportation.
I am an engineer and tend to make approximate estimates of the effects of
spending money on technology vs. roads vs. transit. Typically technology
provides the most reduction in congestion, pollution, CO2 with the highest
increase in quality of life.
If anything, it looks like technology will have money to spare to keep up
with increased future traffic that will be caused by the increase in jobs.
That could free up money for other needs in society.
Road building is typically the next best option at a significant increase in
cost. Road building or improvement is often needed to allow technology to
be used. The cost of improvement more or less equal to the money available
to keep up with future job growth.
Transit is almost always the least effective way and so expensive that it
can not provide more than a very tiny fraction of the increase capacity
needed for the future. The high cost with its load on tax resources makes
it highly destructive to society. The diversion of limited funds to transit
increases congestion, pollution, CO2, and the long travel times strongly
decrease the quality of life.
I tend to judge quality of life from many conversations with people telling
what they like, hate, what irritates them, and what makes them mad.
As with most large systems (a technical area where I am an expert), the
important parameters in making a decision are actually fairly limited and
easy to think about.
Scott Mace says it is a very complex brew of land use, transportation, and
probably many other factors. Such a view is almost always wrong. That type
view is usually used to confuse people so that they can't spot the typical
strategy to push ineffective transit over much more effective solutions.
Scott Mace
> My personal decision, like that of almost everyone else, is based on
> minimum time to get my destination. For me that is mainly on a motorcycle
> to use the diamond lane and to lane split.
I find lane splitting by motorcycles to be absolutely terrifying. In
bumper-to-bumper traffic, it makes lane changing quite a bit more exciting
that I or most people wish it to be.
> The secondary part of the decision is the purpose of the trip and the
> excitement level. If the roads are oil slick from rain or I am shopping,
I
> use the car. For excitement in life, the bias is towards the motorcycle.
Motorcycles seem absolutely adept at shattering neighborhood peace and
quiet. I don't know if it's how they're operated or if they are inherently
noisy. Also, I believe motorcycle engines (2 cylinder, anyway) pollute more
per gallon of gas than most cars or even trucks.
> The planning part is from my duties to represent my employer on the
> Transportation Policy Board of the SVMG. There my goal is to reduce
> congestion and make travel as pleasant as possible for my fellow employees
> within the constraints of the realistic amount of money that can be spent
by
> Governments on transportation.
My goal and that of others, on the other hand, is to create livable
communities, i.e. http://www.livableberkeley.com/ To create alternatives to
Driving Everywhere and to rein in the rampant growth of driving in our
communities -- much greater than population growth.
This cannot be achieved by maximizing automobile throughput and
infrastructure -- wide streets, many freeways, vast free parking. Unless,
perhaps, you assume that all the costs of automobile infrastructure are
bearable by all segments of society -- including the carless (by choice or
through no choice of their own). Unless you blot out any urban experience on
foot or bike except the shopping mall or jogging path. Sure, "oases" of such
things can be built, but they tend to be private enclaves, not public
byways.
> I am an engineer and tend to make approximate estimates of the effects of
> spending money on technology vs. roads vs. transit. Typically technology
> provides the most reduction in congestion, pollution, CO2 with the highest
> increase in quality of life.
Technology is just a tool. How it gets applies is quite flexible.
> If anything, it looks like technology will have money to spare to keep up
> with increased future traffic that will be caused by the increase in jobs.
> That could free up money for other needs in society.
That is an overly optimistic assessment of technology such as ITS which has
no proven demonstration anywhere outside of computer simulations.
> Road building is typically the next best option at a significant increase
in
> cost. Road building or improvement is often needed to allow technology to
> be used. The cost of improvement more or less equal to the money
available
> to keep up with future job growth.
I would submit that the cost of improvement of California's highway system
has fallen far behind job growth and continues to do so. I would submit that
there are no demonstrable exceptions to this observation.
> Transit is almost always the least effective way and so expensive that it
> can not provide more than a very tiny fraction of the increase capacity
> needed for the future. The high cost with its load on tax resources makes
> it highly destructive to society. The diversion of limited funds to
transit
> increases congestion, pollution, CO2, and the long travel times strongly
> decrease the quality of life.
Only when one lumps together sensible transit with the pork-barrel white
elephant transit-in-the-suburbs boondoggles we're so familiar with here.
> I tend to judge quality of life from many conversations with people
telling
> what they like, hate, what irritates them, and what makes them mad.
People hate paying taxes. Should we abolish taxation? People hate obeying
laws. Should we abolish them? People dislike lots of things, but in the real
world we face the requirements of living together and getting along. We
don't look for a scapegoat. Would you abolish BART to San Francisco? Scuttle
the 38 Geary bus? What would the Bay Area commute look like the following
morning? It is folly to believe that ITS can buy every carless person a car
and run a less congested highway system for less than the cost of sensible
transit. There simply is no more cost-effective way to move people in such
situations.
> As with most large systems (a technical area where I am an expert), the
> important parameters in making a decision are actually fairly limited and
> easy to think about.
Limiting the parameters in any decision tends to exclude the needs and
desires of huge portions of affected society. I believe you are an expert in
large systems, but all the experts in large systems we have trusted up until
now have given us failing large systems throughout California.
> Scott Mace says it is a very complex brew of land use, transportation, and
> probably many other factors. Such a view is almost always wrong. That
type
> view is usually used to confuse people so that they can't spot the typical
> strategy to push ineffective transit over much more effective solutions.
Technology's a great thing -- it has given us telecommuting, improved
efficiency immeasurably in countless industries. I will be astounded if it
can right all the environmental, social, and economic wrongs brought about
by U.S. sprawl. Yet, apparently, amazingly, this is your overarching
hypothesis.
See you maybe the next time I change lanes on the freeway,
Scott Mace (occasional driver)
Tim Smith
>Motorcycles seem absolutely adept at shattering neighborhood peace and
>quiet. I don't know if it's how they're operated or if they are inherently
>noisy. Also, I believe motorcycle engines (2 cylinder, anyway) pollute more
>per gallon of gas than most cars or even trucks.
They are noisy because of how they are set-up, and operated. There is
no inherent reason why a modern, small 2-cycle (no longer sold in the
US) or 4-cycle engine should be noisy. Honda, Yamaha, and Suzuki
engineers are well-capable of designing and building quiet small
gasoline engines, and in fact, most Japanese motorcycles (when stock)
are fairly quiet. It's the Harleys, mostly, that produce the noise.
Every time my work is disturbed at home by the gardners with their
incredibly noisy leaf blowers and hedge trimmers, I keep wishing that
Honda or Yamaha built these things. Progress in American small engine
technology stopped around 1950 or so.
John David Galt
> My question for Gary, and for anyone that's willing to discuss the
> topic is what do we, as a society, consider when discussing the costs
> and benefits of the various means of transportation? Until we can
> answer that, we'll just continue the discussion with points that say
> "My way is better/cheaper (because I use these measures)".
The very concept that one mode is, or can be, "best for society" is bogus
because it denies individual choice, and that's what matters.
> So, Mr. Galt, Mr. May, Mr. Zaumen, Mr. Baldwin, you've all been quite
> active in this thread. I ask each of you to tell us what you consider
> when trying to decide which form of transit is the best bargain for
> our society? If you're only interested in discussing what's best for
> you at this moment, post that information. I find that much less
> interesting, but any information helps.
The only correct way for government entities to deal with transportation
is to get out of the business of providing it in ANY form, and let the
market determine what alternatives are available. Government should not
try to dictate this choice or even introduce incentives, except Pigouvian
taxes* to deal with any externalities the market can't handle (and those
need to be limited to cover only those external impacts that can be proven
to the satisfaction of a court of law; this especially goes for alleged
environmental hazards, most of which are simply lies by the would-be
rulers of "Ecotopia").
The same applies to land use. The existing sky-high housing prices are
not results of a free market; they are caused by an artificial shortage,
put in place deliberately through zoning and urban growth boundary laws
so that the existing homeowners (who control the local governments that
make those laws) can profit unjustly. This screws anyone who wants to
move into or near the affected cities, as well as those who own land that
isn't yet developed and is blocked from development by the laws.
(Someone else, I think on this list, posted that high housing prices are
a good thing because they keep out people who have living habits that
make them not good neighbors. Those people do exist, but I strongly feel
that the right solution to that problem is to outlaw the habits involved,
not to maintain the present unacceptable shortage of housing.)
* Defined at http://www.daviddfriedman.com/laws_order/laws_order_chapter_3/laws_order_page_images/laws_order_page_30.gif
John David Galt
>> Motorcycles seem absolutely adept at shattering neighborhood peace and
>> quiet. I don't know if it's how they're operated or if they are inherently
>> noisy. Also, I believe motorcycle engines (2 cylinder, anyway) pollute more
>> per gallon of gas than most cars or even trucks.
Tim Smith wrote:
> They are noisy because of how they are set-up, and operated. There is
> no inherent reason why a modern, small 2-cycle (no longer sold in the
> US) or 4-cycle engine should be noisy. Honda, Yamaha, and Suzuki
> engineers are well-capable of designing and building quiet small
> gasoline engines, and in fact, most Japanese motorcycles (when stock)
> are fairly quiet. It's the Harleys, mostly, that produce the noise.
When I've talked to people who ride noisy motorcycles, I usually learn
that they modified the bike themselves to make it noisier, because they
feel it increases their safety by making them more noticeable.
Perhaps the present (ineffective) laws restricting this practice are the
wrong approach. If it were legalized, exhaust pipes could have sliding
"ports" that the rider could close at night to quiet them down. That
seems a reasonable compromise.
gary baldwin
numbers(votes) of the various modes of transportation. The Best Bargain
is judged by the count of the votes for each user of his/her
transportation method.
It is individual votes that express what society really wants, not
society telling individuals what to do.
Don.t forget the fatal flaw of misplaced subsidies that influence one
choice over another.
The car wins,hands-down!
gary baldwin
Scott Mace
news:24640-3E7...@storefull-2198.public.lawson.webtv.net...
> The Best Bargain is too easy to explain. Just look at the the
> numbers(votes) of the various modes of transportation. The Best Bargain
> is judged by the count of the votes for each user of his/her
> transportation method.
Voting for a transportation method but not for any of many other preferences
(housing, zoning, jobs location) is not much more than a beauty contest.
> It is individual votes that express what society really wants, not
> society telling individuals what to do.
Exactly what gets voted on, and by whom, is a great deal of the problem.
> Don.t forget the fatal flaw of misplaced subsidies that influence one
> choice over another.
Not for one minute do I forget. But we have a fundamental disagreement over
which modes are subsidized and how.
> The car wins,hands-down!
Well one thing is true. When the price of housing gets high enough, you can
live in a car. At least, that's what many around the Bay Area are doing. At
least until they get moved along by the police.
Scott Mace
Steven Anderson
> The Best Bargain is too easy to explain. Just look at the the
> numbers(votes) of the various modes of transportation. The Best Bargain
> is judged by the count of the votes for each user of his/her
> transportation method.
> It is individual votes that express what society really wants, not
> society telling individuals what to do.
This is untrue, as I pointed out earlier in this thread. Many things,
beyond quality and value, can contribute to a product or service being
most used. Monopolies, subsidies, habit, lack of knowledge of the
alternatives - all of these, and others, can lead to people using the
less effective service or product.
Using a seatbelt sure seems like a good value to me (low cost, with a
lot of gain), yet I remember when most people didn't use their
seatbelt. Are you suggesting that because most people didn't use
seatbelts, they were a bad bargain?
Of course that's not true. People didn't use seatbelts because they
never had before, they weren't aware of how much more likely they were
to live through an accident when they wore them, they were
uncomfortable, they wrinkled their clothes, they weren't cool, etc,
not because, inherently, they were not a good bargain.
> Don.t forget the fatal flaw of misplaced subsidies that influence one
> choice over another.
I'm not trying to nitpick here, but what is, in your opinion, the
fatal flaw of misplaced subsidies?
Jym Dyer
> to transit, so that each mode pays its own way.
=v= This is hilarious, because it is of course the exact
opposite of the truth. A token amount of gas tax money goes
to transit, perhaps in recognition of the fact that adequate
transit gets cars off the roads and improves them (and their
costs), perhaps due to bureaucracy, perhaps both.
=v= It's not a drop in the bucket compared to the massive
subsidy of cars, gas, and roads, of course, but this does give
fodder to the drive-time talk radio blowhards and the John
David Galts of the world.
<_Jym_>
gary baldwin
web site that I e-mailed to you. It will answer many of your questions.
You seem to wander from the topic by comparing market type decisions
to non-market types like comparing a car to deciding to use a safety
belt. One has a direct dollar benefit while the other is a safety
device. Now if I were to ask which safety belt is the best bargain you
could make a direct comparison. Don't allow yourself to confuse the
issue by comparing apples and oranges.
The fatal flaw of subsidies is that it distorts any market decision
(vote). Look how the sales of Hummer's have increased in the past year.
Are you aware that Congress passed a bill which gave small business
about a $20,000 tax write-off on the purchase of new vehicles over
5,500lbs. A lot of young businessmen have bought a Hummer rather than a
more practical car. A HOT item and two years from now when they sell the
will net a profit rather than a loss. One of the subsidies with a fatal
flaw.
Read the web page I sent you. It is the most honest approach I have
dome across.
Jack May
"Jym Dyer" <j...@econet.org> wrote in message
news:Jym.wzr89...@econet.org...
> =v= It's not a drop in the bucket compared to the massive
> subsidy of cars, gas, and roads, of course,
You continue to lie since the truth exposes you entire transportation
philosophy as a fairy tale.
The economic analysis is (not that I believe that you will ever tell the
truth):
"Note again that the net cost per person mile for All US Roads is a negative
value, that is, not a cost at all but a small profit of approximately $ 0.1
cents per personmile. For this reason it is not possible to compare
relative net costs (how much more expensive is a cost of $0.46 per ps-mi
(for transit / JM added) than a profit of $0.001 per ps-mi? (for roads / JM
added) )"
In other words there is no Government subsidy for roads and cars, there is a
profit.
http://home.earthlink.net/~malli/costcomp.pdf
Scott Mace
> In other words there is no Government subsidy for roads and cars, there is
a profit.
I would like to see your plan for shutting down BART, Caltrain, AC Transit,
Muni, VTA, Amtrak and negating resultant Bay Area traffic congestion and
myriad new social and economic ills. I also want to see a positive cash flow
at the conclusion of your plan, versus today's situation. Otherwise, take
your particular abstract government subsidy views to some other newsgroup.
Silas Warner
> The Best Bargain is too easy to explain. Just look at the the
> numbers(votes) of the various modes of transportation. The Best Bargain
> is judged by the count of the votes for each user of his/her
> transportation method.
> It is individual votes that express what society really wants, not
> society telling individuals what to do.
> Don.t forget the fatal flaw of misplaced subsidies that influence one
> choice over another.
> The car wins,hands-down!
And this final result is based entirely on the intrinsic value of the car
as a flexible transportation mode, and not on any environmental factors
such as the huge subsidies poured into [roads/transit] or the existing
infrasructure that supports either mode. Is that whay you're claiming?
Okay, then, would the choice of a car have been the Best Bargain in 1903?
Silas Warner
Jack May
"Scott Mace" <sc...@wiredmuse.com> wrote in message
news:v7g1b6...@corp.supernews.com...
> I would like to see your plan for shutting down BART, Caltrain, AC
Transit,
> Muni, VTA, Amtrak and negating resultant Bay Area traffic congestion and
> myriad new social and economic ills.
All of these carry only a few percent of the total trips in the Bay Area and
consume over 75% of the money. There is more day to day variation in
traffic than all the contributions from transit. There would be no
meaningful increase in traffic congestion.
The sick and feeble are not even supported by transit at least in Santa
Clara county. They are supported by a VTA supported automobile driver
system that picks up the people that can't drive. It carries as many people
as the total light rail system for only 10% of the VTA budget. There are
much less expensive and much better ways to solve transportation social
problems than to pour billions down the transit rat hole.
About the only effect would be on SF where transit into downtown is
significant. With the billions of dollars saved we could do a lot to
implement ITS, remove bottle necks, and increase the capacity of non-freeway
roads that carry the majority of the traffic. It would cost only a part of
what we will get from Measure A which only builds BART to San Jose and some
light rail.
The result would be increasing capacity to move people by a factor of about
4 to 6 time. Measure A transit would increase the ability to move people by
about 2% to 4% and would generate large revenue losses, not income.
>I also want to see a positive cash flow
> at the conclusion of your plan, versus today's situation. Otherwise, take
> your particular abstract government subsidy views to some other newsgroup.
The study is not abstract, but is a total accounting of tax inputs and
expenditure outputs. The study is widely respected and took a lot of work
to prepare according to people that are experts in this area. You just
can't accept anything that shows the lies in your bogus and sophomoric
theories.
You think like a young man, not an experienced adult. At least I have hope
that you will mature in the future and realize the stupidity of your youth.
The situation today is that we spend greater percentage of our
transportation funds on transit in the Bay Area than any other part of the
country. That is an indication that roads and cars produce an even greater
profit to Government here than in the rest of the country.
For all that money, the market share of transit in the Bay Area has not
increased for the last 20 years according to the census. A very costly
failure with no hope of success in the future. The social and economic ills
that have been caused by this failure are major.
You are the one that is having a very rough time dealing with reality.
Almost everything you want to do in your posts requires you or someone else
be a dictator to control all of society. Your approaches are strongly in
the "people be damned" camp. Asking me to leave is just another indication
of your dictatorial personality.
Scott Mace
news:6uUda.165884$S_4.92175@rwcrnsc53...
> All of these carry only a few percent of the total trips in the Bay Area
and
> consume over 75% of the money. There is more day to day variation in
> traffic than all the contributions from transit. There would be no
> meaningful increase in traffic congestion.
Did you miss the last BART strike? A strike during which, by the way,
thousands of employees rearranged their schedules temporarily so they would
not have to be on the roadways during that particular week.
> About the only effect would be on SF where transit into downtown is
> significant. With the billions of dollars saved we could do a lot to
> implement ITS, remove bottle necks, and increase the capacity of
non-freeway
> roads that carry the majority of the traffic.
Increasing the capacity of non-freeway roads will bring untold new
congestion, noise and pollution into the communities through which they run.
Not to mention they will make such communities much less walkable and
probably less bikeable than they are now.
> The result would be increasing capacity to move people by a factor of
about 4 to 6 time.
I did not read the study in detail but I assume you did some sort of
calculation based upon its formulae and current Bay Area expenditures. Could
you elaborate? Is the assumption that freeways will be expensively
double-decked or tunneled, or simply that surrounding neighborhoods are
bulldozed in the widening process?
> The study is not abstract, but is a total accounting of tax inputs and
> expenditure outputs. The study is widely respected and took a lot of work
> to prepare according to people that are experts in this area. You just
> can't accept anything that shows the lies in your bogus and sophomoric
> theories.
This study is a narrow-minded assumption that land use planning is
inflexible at best, sprawl-centric at worst -- I can't tell.
> The situation today is that we spend greater percentage of our
> transportation funds on transit in the Bay Area than any other part of the
> country. That is an indication that roads and cars produce an even
greater
> profit to Government here than in the rest of the country.
If you have read this newsgroup for even more than three days, you are all
too aware that the bone-headed decision-makers of the Bay Area have spent
their transportation dollars in appallingly inefficient, corrupt and
mendacious (all credit to RM for that word) ways. Tarring all of
transportation with the white elephant/gold-plated brush of our famous
boondoggles is typical Drive Everywhere cant. Indeed, conspiracy theories
abound that the worst of our "mass transit" mess are actually a vast 40-year
scheme to drive all Bay Area mass transit out of business in short order.
VTA certainly is speeding up the schedule.
> For all that money, the market share of transit in the Bay Area has not
> increased for the last 20 years according to the census. A very costly
> failure with no hope of success in the future. The social and economic
ills
> that have been caused by this failure are major.
They pale in comparison to what's coming when huge portions of California
are paved over at an ever-growing rate of expansion, as vehicle miles
traveled gallop way past population growth, and as the inevitable
restructuring of the new world order begins due to the collapse of the
concept of cheap oil.
The fact you would resort to name-calling throughout your reply simply
completes the job of discrediting your arguments.
ste...@member.fsf.org
> "Scott Mace" <sc...@wiredmuse.com> wrote in message
> news:v7g1b6...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > I would like to see your plan for shutting down BART, Caltrain, AC
> Transit,
> > Muni, VTA, Amtrak and negating resultant Bay Area traffic congestion and
> > myriad new social and economic ills.
>
> All of these carry only a few percent of the total trips in the Bay Area and
> consume over 75% of the money. There is more day to day variation in
> traffic than all the contributions from transit. There would be no
> meaningful increase in traffic congestion.
You continue to claim that mass transit receives 75% of the Bay Area
transit funding. This statistic is not true. In the Bay Area,
according the MTC, highway spending was more than 3 times as large as
transit spending.
I'll quote my own posting from March 5th, in this same thread, which
was also in response to you :
Take a look at the MTC's 2003 Transportation Improvement Program
(TIP), which is a federally required report on all Bay Area
transportation projects that receive federal funding, which is
available at
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/publications/tip/2003/2003_TIP_Guide.pdf. In
Figure 2 you'll see that 47% of the planned spending is for highway
maintenance and rehabilitation, 21% is for highway expansion, 2% is
for local road expansion, and 1% is for local road maintenance.
That's a total of 71% for highways and local roads. Mass transit,
on the other hand, will be getting 13% for expansion, 8% for
maintenance and rehabilitation, and 2% for mass transit operation.
So, road spending - 71%, mass transit spending, 23%.
You are correct that autos account for the vast majority of daily
trips. From
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/publications/state_of_the_system/State_of_the_System.pdf,
car traffic accounts for 86% of daily trips, and transit accounts for
6%.
However, as mentioned before, increasing the number of daily trips is
usually much less expensive for mass transit than it is for auto
traffic.
Steve
Steve Anderson
ste...@member.fsf.org
Steve Anderson
Regarding my question on what, for you, makes a transportation choice
the "Best Bargain" -
Scott Mace said:
> It is absolutely impossible to discuss transportation choices
> without talking about society's dictates regarding land use.
Jack May said he had three personal things that he uses to determine
which transit type to take, time to destination, trip purpose, and
excitement level.
He also has non-personal values, including decreased congestion and
pleasant travel. Is decreased congestion an actual goal, or is it to
decrease travel time and make the travel experience more enjoyable?
Nobody else has responded to the question (if I missed one, please
drop me a note at ste...@member.fsf.org or post in this newsgroup).
Here are some of the things that matter to me when I consider what's
the best bargain. These items are ordered from most important detail
to least important, although, the order does change depending on my
mood, and sometime several lower priority items override a higher
priority item.
* Availability
Sometimes you have many choices. Sometimes you only
have one. I live in the City, so normally I have many
choices.
* Purpose of the trip (Jack May also mentioned this)
This includes such things as how much and what kind stuff I
need to haul and whether I need to join others along the
trip.
* Convenience
This includes how fast the trip is from A to B, how
comfortable the trip is, whether I get my little perks
(like being able to listen to music, drink/buy a cup
of coffee, etc.), comfort (taking the bus during the
rain can be uncomfortable if you need to wait at the
stop for too long), parking, and effort during the
trip (driving takes a lot of effort, watching for a
train stop takes a little effort, transferring takes
somewhere between the other two).
* Direct Cost
Although usually this is only direct cost to me,
sometimes it's direct cost to our society. For
example, I'm really considering never taking BART to
the airport because I think extending BART south
towards San Jose is a poor use our money. Other
costs, like pollution and health issues are really
part of the environmental impact.
* Impact on the environment
I think this is similar to Scott Mace's concern, but I
also consider pollution, qualify of life (more transit
and fewer cars can make it easier to have denser urban
areas that can lead to, I believe, a better quality of
life for city dwellers), health issues related to
transportation, noise, etc.
* Safety
Some people feel very unsafe on MUNI. Many people die
in car accidents every year. I feel safer on CalTrain
than on 101.
* Thrill
Sometimes I just want to go for a drive out on Highway
1, especially on beautiful spring days. Sometimes I
get a thrill from riding on the bus or train.
As you can see, convenience is more important to me than cost. I
think that's true for a lot of people. If mass transit takes you
twice as long as driving does, it doesn't matter if mass transit is
free, most people are still going to drive.
Steve