Re: A Republican!!!!!! (was Re: OT: sponge burning!)
Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> two for one:
>
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 09:38:24PM -0500, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 03:58:10PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote:
>> >
>> > Now the question is, do you really need three motor vehicles, or are
>> > two of 'em a crutch for not leaning on your local officials to fix
>> > public transport?
>> >
>
> well, 4 when you throw in the suzuki ;)
>
> no we don't really need three, but we'll call it two since one is for
> special purpose stuff only. But unfortunately, like so much of
> American, we've gotten ourselves committed to a situation where we
> need them both, or we have to somehow completely re-arrange our
> lives. I'm not opposed to that except that it is financially not
> viable in the short term which prevents us from getting to the
> long-term returns of the fewer cars. We have unfortunately locked
> ourselves into a situation from which there is no extrication without
> serious serious long-term consequences. But we could seriously reduce,
> if we had even just slightly better public transport.
Exactly. Get your neighbors on board and take that attitude to your local
officials. Portlanders got sick of traffic, did that and ended up
replacing a freeway with light rail and expanded bus service in the 1980s.
Enough people use it that it's reached a critical mass where we are to the
point that every time a new line gets put in, traffic on adjacent
thoroughfares drops noticably, and every time a new road is built, traffic
gets worse. I'm not sure Portland traffic would move for about 16 hours
out of the day if we tried the Los Angeles method.
> And actually, if we had the means to turn over our vehicle fleet to an
> all electric option, that would be okay because we could then affor
> dto rent the long-range car for those times we need it.
Does your area have a carshare program? Before I saved my rig from going to
the scrapheap, I was a carshare member, which worked out great for me
downtown. Carshares tend to get reserved parking on the city streets, and
unless you don't mind owning something old enough to be eligible for
antique plates, it's usually cheaper than car payments and your own
insurance.
Probably the best known carshare I can think of would be Flexcar
(http://www.flexcar.com/)
>> Now the question is, do you really understand that in much of America
>> public transport is *not* viable and would be a terrible waste of energy
>> *and* money.
>
> yet, in so much of America where it could work, and work well, it
> still isn't used.
Which is pretty much any urban or surburban area. Pretty much anywhere that
isn't rural nowhere. And depending on the part of the country you're in,
rural nowhere might still have bus service.
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