Oh goodness, am I not enough of an "expert" for you?! Too funny.That whole freedom thing really must bug you; freedom of speech, freedom to choose what to drive, et al.
Too bad, comrade.
Posted on 07/07/2002 10:52:42 AM PDT by John Jorsett
Edited on 04/13/2004 3:29:34 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
A contradiction in terms. If such a thing did actually exist, the government wouldn't have to subsidize it.
The problem with mass transit is that it substitutes one cost for another (there should be an ecomonic principle analogous to the Conservation of Energy called the Conservation of Cost). The only difference is that you prefer paying one type of cost more than the other. The problem comes when you assert that the cost you prefer is somehow inherently "better" than the other equal but different cost.
A perfect example is Washington DC's Metro system (which I use whenever I head up for Caps games at the MCI center). If I drove, I would face traffic congestion and a paucity of parking, not to mention the cost of storing my vehicle for the necessary three hours. By using the Metro, I avoid the traffic and pay about the same (if not a little less) as I would to park, but I add almost 40-50 minutes of transit time (waiting for different trains, stops, etc.). Now, because I am going to a recreational event, I don't mind trading the time for the hassle of the traffic. Were my situation different, I might decide that my freedom of movement (once you board a train, it's kind of hard to change directions to pick up something you forgot), the reduced time in transit, the ability to take side trips, etc., outweight the benefits of the Metro. But the Metro is no more inherently "efficient" than my car. Its "efficiency" is determined by which costs you want to minimize and which you are willing to pay.
Ahahahahahahahaha! You'll spend more energy producing and cleaning the solar panels than you would save (not to mention the increased cost of real estate passed on to all consumers, due to the massive amount of land needed for that power source). Plus, how many precious endangered species of birds do you plan on sacrificing to your gigantic wind-powered cuisinarts? And the resulting loss of land value everwhere those monstrosities can be heard (which is quite a ways).
I hope you were being sarcastic...
Washington's Metrorail services 613,900 trips on an average weekday.(source (pdf)) For simplicity, we can call it roughly 300K commuters making 2 trips/day -- one going in, and one coming out of DC. That's 300K people who find it personally more efficient to use the Metro. Without the Metro, that'd be how many more cars on the beltway and D.C. area roads? ¼ million? 200k? considering some people may carpool, others will drive alone? Do you think D.C.'s beltway and roads could handle that many more cars on an average day?
Please note, I did utilize your definition of personal "efficiency" which is what you are measuring when deciding how to spend YOUR money in selecting how YOU want to move about. That is not the same as comparing the efficiency of a car to mass transit trains. In terms of Energy/fuel efficiency per passenger mile, mass transit is clearly more efficient than the automobile. (unless you drive around in some flimsy little 120 mpg putt-putt mobile -- NOT recommended on the beltway!)
Not really. The question you asked is what THEY were thinking. That is what many in CA think.
Right. Compelling testimony from the rural Alabama resident expert on dense, fast-moving traffic.
Oh goodness, am I not enough of an "expert" for you?! Too funny.That whole freedom thing really must bug you; freedom of speech, freedom to choose what to drive, et al.
Too bad, comrade.
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