will the US military power dominate the world

From: Stephen Harding

snip

There are people spending 4 hours or more in their cars for round trip
commutes
to work!

snip

It never ceases to amaze me how some people would rather spend hours in their
own vehicle rather that 30 minutes in public transport. A rather extreme
example of this lunacy was seen after the last Los Angeles earthquake. The
trains were used almost to capacity for a few days then usage dropped rapidly
to near prequake level. People living outside the city simply preferred sitting
in their own vehicles for hours.

There are areas in the U.S. where the infrastructure MUST be built to the point
where the majority of travel is done by public transport. Southern California,
NYC etc come to mind. The pollution, damage to the environment etc is un
healthy. The time spent commuting could be spent with family. The net reduction
of petroleum products import would more than enough to justify realignment.

I am not saying confiscation of vehicles is the way to go, but putting major
parts of metropolitan areas off limits to noncommercial and nonpuplic transport
shout work nicelly.

The hard part is getting politicians willing to be voted out of office.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

You need to rob someone in order to be able to go from point A to
point B?
Geez... things are apparently even worse than I thought.


Come down off you narrow minded Euro-centric high horse........

I have a good idea though, which might decrease the need for robberies
in the future. You could raise the tax on gas and use that revenue to
improve the transportation system. Everyone benefits. I mean, who can
be against a tax which is completely voluntary to pay? And why not
lower the income tax at the same time as you increase the gas tax?


It has been suggested, however our transportation system is used extensively by
corporations in moving their goods. Any hike in gas prices, either for taxes
or market increase will mean an increase in prices.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

On Thu, 23 Oct 2003 14:34:48 +0100, ess (phil hunt)
wrote:


Clearly a rhetorical question.

A rhetorical question is one that isn't looking for an answer.

That's only a partial definition.


I
clearly was looking for an answer to the questions I asked, so they
weren't rhetorical.

You weren't werent looking for any answer, you were seeking to pigeon hole
on the basis of deliberately loaded questioning.


Hmmm I wonder why you felt the need to tell me that.

To get you to realise how you come across (at least to me).

Ahhh, more usenet psychoanalysis.


greg
--
$ReplyAddress =~ s#\@.*$##; # Delete everything after the '@'
The Following is a true story.....
Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Stephen Harding wrote in
:

Jim Yanik wrote:

Except that even those without autos benefit from
roads;fire,medical,and police arrive by motor vehicle,food,medicines
and other consumer goods are delivered by road transport.IMO,no
robbery.

What about people with no children paying for schools?

Well,either we educate the children,or pay for their welfare or crime after
they cannot earn a living.It's called "pay it forward",I believe.

People without
boats paying for public boat ramps?
That provides the access if they want to get a boat and use it on a public
lake.


Paying for government to insure
people who live of flood plains or barrier island?

Actually,the gov't doesn't insure them,the private insurance companies do.

People who don't
care for music paying for summer concerts on the town common?

There's always someone who isn't going to like having their tax
dollars spent on something. It is effective robbery for them, even if
there is a public good in it somewhere.

Or do you want the EMTs to wait for the next tram,and then walk the
rest of the way to your home when you are in urgent need of medical
care? (carrying all their kit,what little they can.)

I don't think there is any shortage of roads in the US. Perhaps ones
with too many potholes, but ones that can be driven for public service
if needed.


SMH


Unless they are so crowded that the EMTs or Fire Dept cannot arrive in time
to do any good.But,roads DO benefit all residents;Clear benefits.


--
Jim Yanik,NRA member
jyanik-at-kua.net

Stephen Harding wrote:
snip

But given automobile users aren't paying the *full* cost of automobile usage,
we're all passing the buck when we pay to drive our cars to some degree.

Health costs associated with pollution being the biggie, and car use is a
significant part of that.

I'm very much in favor of stealing money from the fuel tax fund to support
bus, train transport, and especially the conversion or "banking" of rail
corridors into bike lanes and paths. It's good long term policy.

Hmmm. I'll bet a good analysis would show the health benefits of auto transport
far outweigh the health costs, especially when compared to realistic
alternatives. There used to be 30,000 gallons of horse urine spilled in New
York City every day and though car collisions are dangerous, they don't kick
you in the head.

The improved earning power and standard of living allowed by independent autos
undoubtedly improves health care affordability and availablity.

Besides, not only does the train refuse to stop at the grocery store on the way
home, there is no place to put a weeks goods if it did. Worst of all, the train
only goes where the tracks go. What do you do when jobs and preferred types of
housing shift? Around here (Seattle area) the local annointed dream up ways to
penalize those who want to live outside "Rapid Transit" corridors.

Oh, yeah. Those old rail beds are almost allways on easments through private
property that is to be returned to the owner's use if the rails are removed.
The Legislatures get involved and steal the land for that massive number of
people who want to bike to work in the rain through the back yards of the lower
income families.

-- Charlie Springer

Stephen Harding wrote:

That's pretty typical of American thinking. But increasingly, we're going to
find that car is making demands on us that we aren't going to like. In some
areas, that's already the case.

snip

You must be at a University. Faculty? Grad student? I know a Stanford physicist
you should talk to. This has been his field for the last 30 years. For
instance, he can give you The Five Reasons Commuter Lanes Don't Work and how
traffic engineers know how to fix most of the problems if the politicians would
let them. There is no looming catastrophe and we are not running out of
resources.

Here is a good question.

If you spread all the mining and digging and such from all of human history out
over the land area of the Earth, how many inches deep do you think we have gone
in the "exploitation" of resources?

-- Charlie Springer

In article ,
(B2431) wrote:

It never ceases to amaze me how some people would rather spend hours in their
own vehicle rather that 30 minutes in public transport.

Would that I had that choice.

I have a 43mi each way commute. (I started out 7mi from the office, made
one move to 25mi from the office, and successive site moves by companies
[2] I've worked for for the past 25 years has increased the distance to
the current value.)

I carpool, and the ride is 45 minutes, each way. 1.5 hours total.

If I take transit, the trip is 1:20, not counting waiting for the
shuttle connection to/from the office, another 20 minutes each way.
(And $55/wk in tickets, or $145.75 for a monthly pass.)

So 3:20 spent traveling to/from work, and I don't count walking to/from
the train station, about a mile from my house. No thanks. (I suppose I
could take the bus, instead of CalTrain, but that would mean about 3:30
each way, and four transfers.)

A rather extreme
example of this lunacy was seen after the last Los Angeles earthquake. The
trains were used almost to capacity for a few days then usage dropped rapidly
to near prequake level. People living outside the city simply preferred
sitting in their own vehicles for hours.

Jim Yanik wrote:

Stephen Harding wrote in

Paying for government to insure people who live of flood plains or
barrier island?

Actually,the gov't doesn't insure them,the private insurance companies do.

Check out the National Flood Insurance Program (Fed Gov't).

Basically they extend insurance to people living in uninsurable
locations like flood plains of major rivers (e.g. Miss/Mo Rivers)
or barrier islands.

Without the program, businesses and housing wouldn't be built there
because of the high insurance costs.

And yes, it's a losing effort. Mother Nature is relentless.


SMH

B2431 wrote:

I am not saying confiscation of vehicles is the way to go, but putting major
parts of metropolitan areas off limits to noncommercial and nonpuplic transport
shout work nicelly.

The hard part is getting politicians willing to be voted out of office.

I think all of what you say is true. The problem is that much of the cost
of automobile usage is hidden. Environmental and health damage, cost of
foreign policies to promote cheaper oil, etc., don't get placed on the
private motor vehicle.

But you've got to admit, the personal freedom of private transport, and
all the infrastructure that supports it, is highly addictive.

In fact, it's gained "rights" status, and is one of the characteristics
that defines us as Americans!


SMH

Regnirps wrote:

Stephen Harding wrote:

That's pretty typical of American thinking. But increasingly, we're going to
find that car is making demands on us that we aren't going to like. In some
areas, that's already the case.

snip

You must be at a University. Faculty? Grad student? I know a Stanford physicist

Former UMass/Amherst computer science dept programmer. Now part-timer and
self-employed technical writer and programmer. [Anyone looking to hire a tech
writer??]

you should talk to. This has been his field for the last 30 years. For
instance, he can give you The Five Reasons Commuter Lanes Don't Work and how
traffic engineers know how to fix most of the problems if the politicians would
let them. There is no looming catastrophe and we are not running out of
resources.

I pretty much agree with that, although I'm skeptical of politically limited
solutions to traffic problems.

Oil will run out probably sometime in the next 100 years, but by the time it
does, I suspect fuel cell technology running on straight H2 (rather than the
initial gasoline) will be meeting energy needs for centuries to come.

Here is a good question.

If you spread all the mining and digging and such from all of human history out
over the land area of the Earth, how many inches deep do you think we have gone
in the "exploitation" of resources?

Lots of earth [earth] surface area with very small volume of earth dug over
history, so I'd be surprised if it came to anything more than 1/1000th of an
inch!

But will the correct answer speed my commute to work?


SMH