So few people are on the MAX trains in Portland that a coyote boarded the train and sat down, unmolested.
Posted on 05/17/2011 11:42:32 AM PDT by Qbert
**Is Willie Green still around here?**
Nope, see this reply by Willie
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2607597/replies?c=60
and then see #65 by Jim Robinson
People do not like being scheduled....There’s a reason why you see millions of cars on the road everyday with only 1 person in it. It’s called freedom.....
“Rail is the triple play of liberal politics:...”
Exactly.
They needed a study?
So few people are on the MAX trains in Portland that a coyote boarded the train and sat down, unmolested.
The fed.gov uses these to coerce state governments to do what the feds want.
How many times have you heard: "The Federal government today threatened to withhold highway funds if (insert state name here) fails to pass the (such and such) bill..."?
I'm not a rail hater, but if I want to go from say Austin to Dallas, and need to stop for business at small towns in between, the rail will most likely not have a station there. I have to rely on the rail schedule and stops.
You should have heard Kenny Romemeyer (sp) on KLBJ this past Sunday afternoon. Less than 20% voter turnout - 17% at max - for the Austin Silly Council election that was held Saturday. Of course, the libs in west and NW Austin had a great turnout again.
The monument to liberalism, the Seattle Light Rail System has spent so much money on so few riders that economists have concluded they could have picked up every business commuter that uses the system in a personal limo or private helicopter and still come out ahead.
As for those who complain about walking a few blocks to a station, the lack of walking is a big factor in the epidemic of obesity which afflicts the country, leading to unnecessary morbidity and mortality.
Didn’t know that. Hey, they have to justify their existence somehow. That and the new tollroad is Gov. Goodhair’s pet projects. I have yet to use either and somehow manage to get to where I need to go.
Hubby used the tollroad once over my objections. Since we didn’t have a tag, we got a bill for nearly $5 (including the return postage) to drive about a mile. Being the good parent that I am, I got a tag for junior’s vehicle that he’s never used so that’s $20 the state has been using for a year.
Cleveland has had it’s Rapid Transit forever! From Shaker Heights to downtown. Has always been well ridden. Now,,, the neighborhoods have changed. It used to be that you paid your fare when you got on. Now you pay at turnstiles in the downtown station. The minority kids just jump the turnstile, and run away. The police came out with a statement that they would no longer be arresting the jumpers because,,,,, they would be arresting a “disproportionate number” of minorities! And that wouldn’t look right! I don’t know how well the transit system was doing, but now it’s another “hand out!”
Highway and airlines are about personal freedom
It's a simple as that
There are a number of reasons why the feds continue the practice. They skim off of the top to create more federal jobs and line their pockets. It also gives them more control over the states by threatening to withold highway money if a state doesn’t kowtow(like the speed limts, drinking age, etc)
A handicapped person needs to file suit saying that this policy has a discrimatory effect because he are forced to pay the fare, while the able bodied youth are able to jump the turnstile. A lawsuit could require the system to install accessible means to beat the fare.
You are very wrong. Highways are not subsidized. Highway construction and maintenance comes directly from highway drivers by way of fuel taxes, generating a huge amount of money. So drivers are directly paying the costs to create & use highways.
No such thing for rail. Riders don't come close to the cost for paying for the construction and upkeep of rail systems.
In fact, much of the money used to subsidize rail comes from gasoline taxes paid for by car drivers.
That is why there is so much scorn for light passenger rail. It is a great idea to join high density areas together, but it is an idiotic idea everywhere else because the users getting the benefit pay a tiny fraction of the actual cost while people who never use the system pay most of the cost. Frankly, it would be cheaper to have a fleet of small buses drive people around for free, than to run trains virtually empty all day long.
When it comes to highways, their construction and upkeep is being directly paid for by drivers, especially commercial drivers who pay a large share of the fuel taxes (of course those big semis do massive damage to pavement as well, so that is fair).
As long as I am pointing out your errors, where to put Sacramento Light Rail wasn't a political decision. It was a short-sighted economic decision to place them on existing abandoned railroad right of way they could buy cheaply or get donated for quid pro quo. They hoped that running light rail along existing highway corridors, I-80, I-5 and highway 50, would get people out of their cars, which it hasn't. By the time you commute from your suburb to the highway, you don't want to park at a LRT station and wait 20 minutes for a train. The idiots should have placed the LRT lines away from existing highway corridors and then planned to build up the areas along the new LRT corridor, so people who like trains could live near them and never have to drive to the highway. This would also cut the driving time down for people who don't want to drive to work since they could live where they had local LRT stations, not have to drive to a highway to get to one. But then Sacramento planning has always been whored out to the highest developer anyway, so there was never a snowball's chance in hell that Sacramento would actually plan LRT correctly. They could have run station directly up through Rocklin, Loomis, Roseville and Elk Grove, etc. and allowed people to walk/short drive to the LRT stations, placing the highest density condos/apartments closest to the LRT stations. Idiots whored out, put the trains on cheap existing right of way, and then let developers fill in the land furthers from everything - rail and highway. Idiots.
Mark, Ed and SGT Sam had the boardings on Cap Metro rail as one of their subjects a couple of days after it was in the Statesman. Most callers were hacked off about the “faked” numbers. They use the same method on the bus system. One person could get on and off at every other block and it is called a boarding. 20 + boardings for one person in a day!!
We do have the TX Tag on each of our vehicles, but seldom use any of the toll roads. We kept our daughter on our account, even though lives in Houston and teaches in Katy. There are some places she has to go that the tool road just saves a lot of time.
Wille has gone to the great roundhouse in cyberspace.
The Tri Met or whatever it’s called doesn’t go anywhere you want to go, like for instance the biggest mall in the portland area, the Washington Square Mall.
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