Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
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On Saturday 03 June 2006 15:03, Jacob S <stormspotter@6texans.net> was
heard to say:
> They were having such a riot, they talked the city governments into
> giving them even more money to start a rail line. It's faster than
> the bus, but only if you want to go to a very selective spot in the
> downtown of a member city. Otherwise you have to use the rail to
> get to a bus stop so you can still have a 2 hour long ride.
That's been the experience with every city that has put in "light
rail". Trains that no one uses, so it ends up costing taxpayers to
keep the while elephant alive. San Jose, California, where I lived
for a while, had only %14 of their operating costs covered by ticket
sales.
> I don't buy into the public transportation sales pitch, if you can
> call it that.
The Future of Freedom Foundation ran a very interesting series of
articles outlining the New York City subway disaster. It turns out
that they were privately built, and operated at a profit for decades,
until the city government turned on the regulatory screws. They
eventually went bankrupt, and were bought out by the only buyer left:
that same city government.
Not only has the system never been profitable since, ridership
continues to drop since the just-pre-buyout peak around 1940.
Unfortunately, the articles are delayed a few months after their print
publication, but they will be available soon at
http://www.fff.org/toc/fr06.asp
BTW, buried deep in the Portland, Oregon, planning commission report
is an analisis of what cities have the same kind of roads for a given
population, multi-use high-density buildings, overall population
densities, all the factors that the planning commission has
targetted. And the city that the Portland City Planning Commission
found most closely matched their targets? Portland, your future
is.....
Los Angeles, California.
I'm sorry, but I'm not making this up.
Curt-
- --
September 11th, 2001
The proudest day for gun control and central
planning advocates in American history
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