rotten wrote:
On Jun 8, 2:30 pm, Bolwerk wrote:
rotten wrote:
On Jun 7, 10:52 am, Bolwerk wrote:
rotten wrote:
On Jun 6, 4:30 pm, Bolwerk wrote:
Pat wrote:
On Jun 4, 12:44 pm, "Amy Blankenship"
wrote:
"Pat" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Jun 4, 9:49 am, "Amy Blankenship"
wrote:
"Joe the Aroma" wrote in
messagenews:_tKdnbr_7I5HD_7bnZ2dnUVZ_uiknZ2d@comca st.com...
Which is because most people do not want to live without a car. Seems
simple enough to me.
Simple is as simple does ;-)
Amy, I think Joe has a point. There is a difference between "need a
car" and "want a car".
There are some folk who live in, say Manhattan, and never venture far
from home. They can easily live without a car. Their entire world
might be just a few square miles. They have busses, and trains, and
cabs, etc.
Then there are folk like me (and probably you) who live off the beaten
path who really need cars. There's no public tranportation around and
not much of a population base to support lots of retail, etc., nearby
(thankfully). So a car is needed.
Interestingly, a 20 mile trip to the store may sound like a huge
distance to someone from Manhattan but it's only about 20 minutes,
which is what they are probably walking to their store. The distance
scales are very different.
But there is another set of "tweeners" who probably don't "need" a car
but really enjoy the freedom of owning one. They don't have to wait
for the bus or the cab or rent a car for a night out.
I'm not sure how much conjection or pollution difference it would be
if they all sold their cars, but I guess that's not for me to decide.
If they an afford one, that's their choice. The best gov't can/should
do it to provide them with other choices so that maybe they decide to
live without a car. But it's a person's decision.
That's all anyone here is advocating for. I've never figured out why people
would argue to remove people's choices to walk/bike/use transit, but there
are many who do.
-Amy
I'd say that they are morons who live in cities, but I fear that that
would be redundant. ;-)
These particular "morons" seem to live in the suburbs primarily, or
suburbanized rural areas anyway.
Funny enough, improving transit systems in cities and metropolitan areas
would probably only benefit rural areas. The energy savings alone would
be remarkable. Smog hurts the health of urban residents, but pollutants
also hurt the environment in rural areas.
I live in the city, I just think nobody should subsidize anybody
else's transportation.
I don't know what it means for "nobody" to "subsidize anybody else's
transportation." Depending where you live and if you drive, your
transportation is probably subsidized by all kinds of people, places,
and funding schemes, ranging from gas taxes to direct federal
appropriations.
Even if you walk, you're probably using a subsidized sidewalk.
The impact that walkers have on the budget is minimal, so I don't care
about them. Are you saying my opinion is that we should tax walkers?
Talk about carrying something to an extreme conclusion.
I was just pointing out that it gets kind of hairy to make claims that
something that governments have been doing throughout history should not
be done (arguably, transportation might be the reason governments became
as complex as they did). Not that I even entirely even disagree with
you, but the impact of what you're proposing (direct user fees) could be
extremely far-reaching, as I and others have mentioned before.

It's partially and mostly what we do now.

Partially, yeah.

In any case, I expect you might be able to get a busy highway to pay for
itself. I doubt you could get the whole road system to pay for itself,
at least not directly.

Why not? We pretty much do that now as it is.

A well-maintained local road sometimes only gets a few cars a day. I
rather doubt those could pay for themselves directly under any
circumstances.

As for pollution, mandating pollution controls on cars can clean up
air quality without affecting anybody's transportation options.
Pollution controls on cars have thus far proven only so effective. In
any case, people often have only one option: private automobiles.
Expanding transit system might give many people at least two options.
That's right, and if they want another choice, they can move to
somewhere that doesn't require automobiles, like into a city center
where more transportation options are available.
That sounds like giving up to me. On top of that, what you're proposing
has the potential to drive up the transportation costs for suburbanites
by leaps and bounds. It might force people of certain income levels
into cities.

No, it's not giving up, it's letting people make their own choices
about where and how they live. It won't drive up the transportation
costs for suburbanites by leaps and bounds at all. It will barely
raise them at all.

Wait, so, let's say that that direct user fees covering the entire cost
of a trip raises the price of gasoline by a dollar per gallon (probably
a low estimate). That sounds like a pretty big hit, especially for the
people most likely to drive needlessly large cars.