Do bicycles and cars mix?

"Keith F. Lynch" wrote:
So why did Virginia raise sales taxes by 12% a few years ago?

DTJ wrote:
I wonder how they figured it to be 12%?

They didn't call it that. It was an increase from 4% to 4.5%. They
called it a half percent increase. I called it a twelve and a half
percent increase.

The subsequent proposed 22% increase, 4.5% to 5.5%, they called a
"penny tax". I was tempted to go to city hall, hand them a penny,
and tell them that now that I've paid my tax in full, I never want
to hear from them again.

Homewood school district tried to more than triple taxes a few years
ago. They claimed it was only a 3% raise. They neglected to tell
you that was on top of the already 1.5% tax rate, and the new total
would be 4.5%. Voters weren't that stupid.

Likewise in Virginia. The proposed 22% increase was defeated.
--
Keith F. Lynch - - http://keithlynch.net/
I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but
unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me
HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.

"Keith F. Lynch" writes:

"Keith F. Lynch" wrote:
So why did Virginia raise sales taxes by 12% a few years ago?

DTJ wrote:
I wonder how they figured it to be 12%?

They didn't call it that. It was an increase from 4% to 4.5%. They
called it a half percent increase. I called it a twelve and a half
percent increase.

The subsequent proposed 22% increase, 4.5% to 5.5%, they called a
"penny tax". I was tempted to go to city hall, hand them a penny,
and tell them that now that I've paid my tax in full, I never want
to hear from them again.

I can tell that you live in Virginia.

I bet if it weren't for the war of northern aggression, you wouldn't
hav to pay taxes at all!

--
Jordan Bettis http://www.hafd.org/~jordanb
C++ will do for C what Algol-68 did for Algol.
-- David L. Jones

In misc.transport.urban-transit, Jordan Bettis
wrote in :

"Keith F. Lynch" writes:

"Keith F. Lynch" wrote:
So why did Virginia raise sales taxes by 12% a few years ago?

DTJ wrote:
I wonder how they figured it to be 12%?

They didn't call it that. It was an increase from 4% to 4.5%. They
called it a half percent increase. I called it a twelve and a half
percent increase.

The subsequent proposed 22% increase, 4.5% to 5.5%, they called a
"penny tax". I was tempted to go to city hall, hand them a penny,
and tell them that now that I've paid my tax in full, I never want
to hear from them again.

I can tell that you live in Virginia.

I bet if it weren't for the war of northern aggression, you wouldn't
hav to pay taxes at all!

Right, blame the Revolt of the Slaveholders for taxes 140 years later...

Rick wrote in message
link.net...
George,

No. You are wrong. 1/3 of my house, and every house on every street on
which
I've lived has a garage supposedly dedicated to cars (bigger houses simply
have bigger garages nearly in the same proportion in most neighborhoods,
though there are some areas where the size of the house greatly exceeds
this
basic rule).

Do you expect anyone to take you seriously? A 2,100 foot square house,
the average now, would have to have about 50 or more cars to meet your
criteria.

wrote:
Keith F. Lynch wrote in message
...

wrote:

Tranasit makes it harder for people to get to work.

If this were true, nobody would ride it to work.
--


Sure you would. Anything highly subsidized will get some takers.

Unsubsidezed transit does exist, you know...

--
Krist

wrote in message
hlink.net...

Rick wrote in message
link.net...
George,

No. You are wrong. 1/3 of my house, and every house on every street on
which
I've lived has a garage supposedly dedicated to cars (bigger houses
simply
have bigger garages nearly in the same proportion in most neighborhoods,
though there are some areas where the size of the house greatly exceeds
this
basic rule).

Do you expect anyone to take you seriously? A 2,100 foot square
house,
the average now, would have to have about 50 or more cars to meet your
criteria.

Might wanna recheck your math, there, Georgie.

How much space is devoted to a car in the garage? Just the car, nothing
else. An Explorer is 15.5 x 6. Car is only 6' wide, but you gotta open the
doors. Maybe 19 x 12?

1/3 of your "average house" is 700 sq ft.
19x12 = 228 sq ft You can only fit 3 of those in that 700 sq ft. Hey, we
just invented a 3 car garage!

Not "50 or more". What kind of cars are YOU thinking of? Maybe something
that is 8' x 5'? A 60's Mini isn't even that small.

Pete

Dr Engelbert Buxbaum wrote:
Marc wrote:

But the conservatives are white elitists. And conservatives don't seem to
be environmentalists, and environmentalists don't seen to be conservative
(at least the current political definition).

The word conservative comes from the latin "conservare": to protect, to
preserve. In that sense, an environmentalist is certainly conservative.

But it has changed since then. Now, a conservative is someone against
personal freedom, but for financial and corporate freedom.

Marc
For email, remove the first "y" of "whineryy"

"Keith F. Lynch" wrote:
Marc wrote:
"Keith F. Lynch"
And passengers can read or work, rather than
giving their full attention to driving.

I can't do either on a train or bus. I've tried.

So that's a reason to close them down for everyone, forcing everyone
on the planet to either be a motorist or a recluse?

In D.C., my sister was renting a place. The only way she could get
an assigned spot would have been to buy it for $15,000. Then, she
would have had to pay over $250 a month for parking at work. For
someone wanting basic transportation, they'd have to pay as much
or more to park the car than for the car itself. She could either
afford a car or a place to park it, but not both.

I assume she took Metro?

She'd Metro one way and walk the other.

Cars may be necessary in the countryside,
but they're out of place in the city. They take up valuable real
estate, and they travel slower than pedestrians.

That depends on your definition of "city." Houston, Dallas, L.A., San
Diego, San Antonio, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and many others are over a
million strong, but you would be hard pressed to be able to live
comfortably there without having a car. NY, DC, and Boston are about the
only places where large numbers of well to do people opt not to buy cars
because they are unnecessary. Chicago sits on the fence (the purely
downtown dwellers don't need one, but those in the suburbs do).

I'm not sure of anyone that is *unable* to drive because of
temperamental reasons ...

Anyone who either gets angry easily, or who tends to daydream. No,
they aren't literally *unable* to drive, but then neither is a blind
person. They just probably won't get very far before killing someone.

The daydreamers would miss their stop, the angry ones would get mad at the
people on the bus. Instead of curing their problems, you are confining
them in a cage with others and declaring it irrelevant.

If you don't generate your own electricity, sew your own clothes,
build your own house, or grow your own food, why should you drive
your own vehicle? Specialization just makes sense.

Well, we ought to just have our teeth removed and have some machine
chew our food for us as well.

Teeth don't require training for use. Or government licensing. Or a
large upfront capital expenditure. Teeth don't kill tens of thousands
of Americans every year.

The question was about specialization. It was not about training. It was
not about licensing. It was not about cost. It was not about safety.

Just because it can be automated or outsourced does not mean it is a
good idea to do so.

Just because you can do it yourself doesn't mean it's a good idea to
force everyone else to do it themselves.

I'm not talking about forcing anyone to do anything. You appear to be the
only one with that in mind.

(Yes, I know what Heinlein said. It's good to be *able* to drive a
car, swim, send morse code, survive in the wilderness, fly a plane,
repair a CD player, etc, but unless that's your profession or a
hobby you enjoy, why do it every day?)

But what if driving is your hobby? You are posting to a driving
group.

I'm posting to a transit group. I'm not the one who started
crossposting this thread.

You are posting to a driving group. You may be posting from a transit
group, but you are most certainly posting to a driving group. If you can't
read your own headers, you are way beyond help.

What if driving is your hobby? Then drive, if you can do so safely,
bearing the full costs. But don't try to force everyone else to
drive.

That's what this is all about. I'm not telling anyone not to drive.
I'm asking them not to tell me to drive. Maybe bus riding, train
riding, walking, and cycling are *my* hobbies.

Again, you are the only one bringing up forcing others to your will. With
the current system, you have choices. You can take public transport. You
can go under your own power. You can pilot your own vehicle. You can ride
with others in a non-comercial manner, or you could solicit a ride from a
commercial entity.

That is a lot of choices. Aside from comments regarding funding, no one,
other than you, has mentioned forcing anyone to do anything.

I'd prefer that there was no government money in transportation at
all. But as long as there is, every mode ought to get its fair share.
If anything, there should be preference for modes which kill fewer
people, which pollute less, which are usable by people with medical
or financial problems, which take up less valuable urban real estate,
and which don't require "internal passports".

Are you implying that cars paying for 100% of their costs and 75% of the
costs for mass transit is "fair share" because you see more value in mass
transit? If there isn't the value in mass transit, the massive leaching
from other revenue sources to sustain the non-viable system doesn't seem to
be "fair."

Marc
For email, remove the first "y" of "whineryy"

Thanks for doing the math, Pete. I was pretty certain that George would lack
the ability to do so. Of course, since I am screening everything he is
posting, I wasn't going to help him with this, either.

Rick

PS: My garage is more than 700 sq. ft. in a 1800 sq. ft. house. While it can
hold 2 cars and stuff, its primary intention was to store cars. That it
doesn't do so is a sad claim to past consumerism, thoug it does protect my
bikes, now.

"Pete" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
hlink.net...

Rick wrote in message
link.net...
George,

No. You are wrong. 1/3 of my house, and every house on every street on
which
I've lived has a garage supposedly dedicated to cars (bigger houses
simply
have bigger garages nearly in the same proportion in most
neighborhoods,
though there are some areas where the size of the house greatly
exceeds
this
basic rule).

Do you expect anyone to take you seriously? A 2,100 foot square
house,
the average now, would have to have about 50 or more cars to meet your
criteria.

Might wanna recheck your math, there, Georgie.

How much space is devoted to a car in the garage? Just the car, nothing
else. An Explorer is 15.5 x 6. Car is only 6' wide, but you gotta open the
doors. Maybe 19 x 12?

1/3 of your "average house" is 700 sq ft.
19x12 = 228 sq ft You can only fit 3 of those in that 700 sq ft. Hey,
we
just invented a 3 car garage!

Not "50 or more". What kind of cars are YOU thinking of? Maybe something
that is 8' x 5'? A 60's Mini isn't even that small.

Pete

Tanya Quinn wrote in message
om...
wrote in message
thlink.net...
Rick wrote in message
link.net...
George,

No. You are wrong. 1/3 of my house, and every house on every street on
which
I've lived has a garage supposedly dedicated to cars (bigger houses
simply
have bigger garages nearly in the same proportion in most
neighborhoods,
though there are some areas where the size of the house greatly
exceeds
this
basic rule).

Do you expect anyone to take you seriously? A 2,100 foot square
house,
the average now, would have to have about 50 or more cars to meet your
criteria.

It is not square footage that matters since a lot is never filled by
building anyway, but the size of the lots determine how many houses
you can put in any given area. If a house has 60' frontage (typical
suburban lot) and 20' of the frontage is taken up by an attached
double car garage then 1/3 of the space is effectively dedicated to
cars.

A typical suburban lot (R10) is about 12,000 sqare feet. A car takes up
60-100 square feet. What about 120 on your lot?