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Lack of Automobility Key to New Orleans Tragedy
Thoreau Institute ^ | 4 September 2005 | Randal O'Toole

Posted on 09/04/2005 9:38:42 PM PDT by logician2u

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To: Safrguns; sayfer bullets

Idiot N.O. Mayor bump

It's Bush' fault.


21 posted on 09/04/2005 9:54:51 PM PDT by sayfer bullets
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To: logician2u

Thanks for pointing out the role of "smart growth" in the deaths of so many people.

In California, the Sacramento Region Blueprint is creating "smart growth" chaos with significant funding from the Department of Transportation. If you see "traffic calming", international style road markings for crosswalks and such and "smart growth" or "transportation-oriented" developments, you can bet the good old DOT is paying for a lot of it.

More reason now than ever to trim the federal government and evict the people hating Agenda 21 sustainable development bureaucrats that are disabling America.


22 posted on 09/04/2005 9:56:19 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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To: logician2u

If you could only fit wheels to a big-screen TV.


23 posted on 09/04/2005 9:58:40 PM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: logician2u
Take a close look at some of the video of many of the rescues. There are quite a few cars [arked on the streets in front of the houses as well as in many driveways.

I'm not quite convinced yet.

24 posted on 09/04/2005 9:58:49 PM PDT by TravisBickle (Are you talking to me?)
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To: logician2u

So now not only can I blame tree huggers for the price I'm paying for gas in my little town but I can dump a couple dozen truckloads of them dead bodies that are swellin up down there in the Big Easy right on their front porch.


25 posted on 09/04/2005 10:00:20 PM PDT by kublia khan (absolute war brings total victory)
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To: logician2u

One things for sure, if you didn't have a car of your own, you sure weren't going to get out of New Orleans. How could you with over 400 buses sitting idle in their bus barns that the sorry excuse for a Mayor did not comandeer and load with poor people and drive them out, before he fled to safety himself.

It isn't Bush's job to call out City and School buses to evacuate people, it's the Mayors and the Governors. They are the beginning of the Chain of Command and they made no effort to implement the disater plan they both had to know was there. It was Bush who pleaded with them to even announce an evacuation and they waited until it was almost too late.

Not everyone can own a car, least of all the poor. Still, if they can drive a car, they can handle a bus, a 17 year old youth did.

There is no excuse for the City and States failure here, no matter what kind of smokescreen they put up to make it look like Bush failed.

Had Bush just gone in and taken charge, they would be screaming today that he interfered in State Matters and is instituting a Nazi State.

That Governor and Mayor deserve no less than to be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail by the very citizens they failed.


26 posted on 09/04/2005 10:00:38 PM PDT by DakotaRed
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To: guitarnick40

I didn't take it as such. :)


27 posted on 09/04/2005 10:01:33 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
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To: logician2u
Non car cities require high density. High density cities are not only worse during natural disasters, they're worse if attacked by terrorists.

It's no coincidence that 9/11 happened in one of the most high density, and mass transit cities on earth.

Dispersal in low density areas, and working via the Internet, is a great way to live.

28 posted on 09/04/2005 10:02:12 PM PDT by narby (Democrats are incompetent - just look at New Orleans)
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To: Dont_Tread_On_Me_888
Al Gore has a plan for traffic congestion - a lot more of it (or the anti-"sprawl" oligarchy)

The "livable, walkable, bikable" communities that A1 Gore touts as his solution to sprawl will be even more congested. Take Portland, Oregon, for example, the poster city for "livable." It has adopted "growth boundaries" to contain future population increases within the existing perimeter. More people in the same space will encourage walking and biking, planners say, and that, along with a proposed 120-mile rail system, will cause a 4.6 percent drop in the automobile's share of total trips. But here's the crunch: Increasing population while holding road growth to just 14 percent will more than triple congestion by 2040, according to the plan.

Given the dishonesty that constitutes political discussion these days, it's hardly surprising that this plan stalks the unwary voter under the name "smart growth." Al Gore, the Sierra Club, and others brazenly declare it will "ease traffic congestion."

They have seen our mobility, and they're against it.
29 posted on 09/04/2005 10:02:49 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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To: logician2u

It is a good post. If you live in a death trap, depending on public transportation is quite risky. If you can't afford a car, living in a death trap is not one's best strategy. Move to Atlanta, move to Houston, move to Dallas, but move, away from the gulf, where mother nature is quite angry at the moment, and she is not finished with her anger. She will be back, again, and again.


30 posted on 09/04/2005 10:04:14 PM PDT by Torie
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To: Travis McGee

Actually, everybody is misreading this rule in the plan. It says that "School and municipal buses...may be used to provide transportation for individuals..." It doesn't say they must be used for that purpose.

The mayor made a bad call: the proviso makes it his or her call to use the busses. His call was not to. That's not a deviation from the plan. He 'may' choose to use buses, and he chose not to.

It was the wrong decision, but not in violation of the plan.


31 posted on 09/04/2005 10:05:10 PM PDT by HitmanLV
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To: Indy Pendance

Not likely. Private automobiles give people freedom and independence. The "libs" don't want your average citizen to have these things. Thats why they have brought "smart growth" soviet style housing and transportation to America.


32 posted on 09/04/2005 10:05:33 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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To: Travis McGee

THANK YOU!!! Cars, my butt ... they just needed a mayor and governor who were conscious and could hear.


33 posted on 09/04/2005 10:06:51 PM PDT by STARWISE (GITMO IS TOO GOOD FOR THE 911 TRAITORS -- SEND THEM ALL TO EGYPT FOR QUESTIONING.)
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To: Arkie2; Travis McGee
New Orleans is an advertisement for owing a private automobile and a damning critique of public transportation.

New Orleans is also an advertisement for owning a gun, too!

Travis, excellent graphics!

34 posted on 09/04/2005 10:07:55 PM PDT by DTogo (U.S. out of the U.N. & U.N out of the U.S.)
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To: Howlin
Time for "nothing" to change. But shut fema down. Turn it over to the military, and repeal any law that allows the Blanco's of this planet to get in the way. The needless slaughter of the innocent over bureaucratic back biting, lack of centralized command, and intensity of a response, cannot stand in a public square that is at all engaged, and oriented towards first things - the first thing being saving human life.
35 posted on 09/04/2005 10:09:14 PM PDT by Torie
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To: Travis McGee

So lets put this into prospective. All they had to do is trudge 1.2 miles to those silly stored school buses...hot-wire them (which over 15,000 NO residents are very capable of)...put at least people on, and drive out. Of course, it wouldn't have taken care of all SuperDome folks in one trip...but if you just drive 10 miles up the road, and return for more folks...you fix the problem. And 24 hours after the hurricane ends...no one starts to think of that? I wouldn't have stayed in the Dome more than 12 hours max...and I would have hit the road. I just can't understand the lack of survival skills in this town. They know how to be corrupt, and sell drugs, and rob you...but they don't even have the basic skills of survival.


36 posted on 09/04/2005 10:13:18 PM PDT by pepsionice
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To: hedgetrimmer

Unless they can make money or somehow keep them dependant, they'll try. Most likely, you're correct. But, if there is a way to give them a 'free' car, they'll surely look into it.


37 posted on 09/04/2005 10:13:28 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
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To: Indy Pendance

You may live in or near a city that had "free bicycles" to encourage people not to drive their car.

A person could pick a bicycle up at one spot then ride it to where they wanted to go and leave it for the next person.

They were painted horrible fluorescent colors so no one would steal them.

Guess what happened next?

Now if they give away cars, what do you think will happen?


38 posted on 09/04/2005 10:17:27 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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To: MediaMole
I think it's both.

The huge hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900 and caused 6,000 deaths came almost without warning. But if they had known it was coming, could the residents have possibly gotten to high ground in time? Don't know. How many trainlonds would it have taken?

I do recall several times in the past few years, Florida was hit with bad hurricanes. The highways were clogged with cars, of course. The ones who stayed behind to "ride it out" were taking extraordinary chances, IMHO.

A car does provide a rapid means of getting to higher and drier ground, although it sometimes involves getting stuck in traffic. That's better than the altenative, isn't it?

39 posted on 09/04/2005 10:18:14 PM PDT by logician2u
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To: hedgetrimmer

They stole DVD's and plasma tv's. It's the government handout mentality. Until that's changed, until we rid this country of socialism, what we saw in NO is just the tip of the iceberg.


40 posted on 09/04/2005 10:23:14 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
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