This just In! Mass Transit is a Communist Plot!

[DSchmitt]

davelelper: I think that basicly we agree.

[daveklepper]

DSchmitt, if you won't accuse me of bigotry I won't accuse you. We both speak from experience from the particular situations and people we know and have met. LaGuardia was a bigot against streetcars and Bob Moses was a bigot against rail in general. I can back up those statements with facts. When I say transit advocates and engineers are not anti-car. I speak from the knowledge that I have of my friends who are in the business and the decisions that they make. And their enthusiams for their own pet hunk of metal to place on the road. You are very familiar with the California situation and I am not. I would agree that when former Governor Pat Brown said we will not build another highway, he was as much as a bigot in one direction as Bob Moses was in the other. But Pat Brown was not a professional transit planner. I also agree that a few light rail systems were poorly conceived. But what about the Mass Turnpike intown Boston extension and the Big Dig? I am convinced that both should have been done only in conjunction with massive commuter rail and local transit improvements at the same time. The lack of N-Sta - S. Sta rail is a National and New England problem, not just one for Massachusetts and Boston. I think you will agree that the decisions Denver and Salt Lake City have reached are reasonable and balanced. Also, St. Louis and Baltimore. Buffalo? A real question mark for the money spent. And the River Line was clearly a case of service for economic development with all transit planners I know convinced the money should have been spent on upgrading Atlantic City or extending PATCO to Gloucester or.... But politicians made the decision. Fortunately, the results are a bit better than the transit professionals predicted and maybe the politicans dream of economic improvement will follow.

In Israel, the new Airport Tel Aviv 10 minute train is ballyhooed. But there were adequate highway connections and an existing freight line that could have been upgraded at possibly 1/4 the cost for a 20 minute trains. Meanwhile, the growing and very pleasant and mixed-population suburb of Beit Shemesh (British called it Hartuv Junction) commute to Jerusalem is via a crowded winding two lane road for much of the distance, and there is fast rail service to Tel Aviv but not to Jerusalem and the railways have proposed rebuilding the original 104 year line out of service for six years because of deferred maintenance only to an outlying shipping center, of no value to most commuters who would continue to drive or take the bus. (The bus runs frequently but gets stuck in traffic with everyone else.) And no rail to Jerusalem means bad highway conditions in general because of heavy truck traffic instead of the intermodal off and to ship service available almost everywhere else that is important. So I see very bad planning in my own (new) back yard. Then the idiocy of planning light rail cars for Jerusalem that have two out of six axles unpowered, given our hills!

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper
[.+ The fundamentalist bigots seem exclusively in the anti-rail anti=transit camp.

The majority of what you have said on related threads is well thought out and reasonable, but this statement is bigotry.

At one time it was the policy in California to route Highways through instead of around the cities. This was particularly true of the State Capitol. Every rout that could possibly be made to go through the centerb of the city did. This policy was dictated by the politcians, not the Highway planners. When Jerry Brown became Governor he instituted an anti-highway policy. The idea was: If you don't build a highway you won't get developement along the corridor to generate highway traffic. It didn't work. On the other hand the governor's appointees decided to build I-5 in the lightly populated west side of San Jaquin Valley to promote growth there. That didn't work either. Nearly all the growth in the west valley cames from westward expansion of the Cities along Highway 99.

About 20 years ago the City of Sacramento killed a belt highway which would have allowed motorists, whose destination wasn't downtown, to bypass the congested highways that run close to the City center. Most of the needed R/W had already been purchased. They decided to use the money for a light rail system. Its a nice system, but although it parallels the highways, didn't do as much to relieve Highway congestion as was hoped.

Now they would like the bypass highway too, but the right of way, has been sold and a lot of it developed as homes and businesses which adds to the congestion on the existing street and Highway system.

A number of cities, including Sacramento, have instituted "traffic calming" measures. These consists of 1-way streets, barricades and turning restrictions desiged to make it difficult to get through an area and force motorists onto other already congested routes much to the dismay of the people who live on them. While some of this is appropriate, it oftem seems to be more motivated by a desire to make things more difficult for the motorist.
.

[daveklepper]

Given the power of those who manufacture, sell, drive, and service and fuel automobiles, I doubt that the freedom of the USA driver will ever be really curtailed. But there are those who would prefer to read a newspaper or catch up on homework or whaterver on the way to school or office, and meweting their requirements can make it easier for the people who continue to drive cars by lessing the amount of traffic they have to cope with. Nearly all light rail enthusiasts, planners, engineers, managers, and operating personnel also own cars. Some are even sports car enthusiasts or vintage car collectors.+ The fundamentalist bigots seem exclusively in the anti-rail anti=transit camp. Except for some politicians and others in New York City, I have not heard of banning cars from entering downtown areas, and I've seen professional transit railway planners and engineers go to great lengths to protect motorists' interests.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dougal

Another stupid topic, it seems like most of the topics on here lately have been garbage.

You betcha, Darn too-tin

[Anonymous]

Another stupid topic, it seems like most of the topics on here lately have been garbage.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by DSchmitt

In a free society the government is the servant of the people. If the people as individuals are trusted to make decisions that are in their best interests, the overall sum of the individual decisions will in the long run be good for society. This principal, although imperfectly implemented, has allowed the USA to, in a historically short time, become the greatest nation on earth.

To make good decisions the people need to be educated. The need fo be able to look at the proproganda and pick out the truth.

Planning is necessary, but the decisions must be made on honest information and evaluation. People should be given choices, not have choices restricted to what some few people in positions of power, no matter how well meaning, think is good for them.

[^][#ditto][tup][yeah]WELL SAID SIR!!!!

[DSchmitt]

In a free society the government is the servant of the people. If the people as individuals are trusted to make decisions that are in their best interests, the overall sum of the individual decisions will in the long run be good for society. This principal, although imperfectly implemented, has allowed the USA to, in a historically short time, become the greatest nation on earth.

To make good decisions the people need to be educated. The need fo be able to look at the proproganda and pick out the truth.

Planning is necessary, but the decisions must be made on honest information and evaluation. People should be given choices, not have choices restricted to what some few people in positions of power, no matter how well meaning, think is good for them.

[railman]

QUOTE: Originally posted by regstocking



Somehow I don't think the freedom George Washington's Continental Army left bloody footprints in the snow at Valley Forge for is the right to drive a gashog to the 7-11 to buy a sixpack.

They fought for the right to make a nation where you could do what you want, but with a "greater good" element in there too. In the country today, you have the privilege of driving a hog to the store, however to suggest that you if you do you're a bad person is not right to say. Even in the heyday of the 1920's-1940's streetcars didn't go everywhere, and cars back then didn't get great mileage either. I guess what I'm saying is if you want to waste money buying gas like that, then good for you. Just don't try and tell me that we can't build new trolley lines.

[Anonymous]

This morning's San Fran CHRONICLE has a piece about current gas prices. Guess what. The 1973-4 oil crisis should have been a wake-up call about depending on imported oil. Why do you think the French went all-out on the TGV system? But did America learn anything? Of course not. We think we have an eternal right to do as we please, which includes burning as much cheap oil as we feel like. Don't ask where the ever-increasing supply of cheap oil will come from. (Iraq, anyone?)

The Nixon Administration decided that the NE Corridor should be electrified clear to South Station, Boston, by the Bicentenial, but Jerry Ford's Secretary of Transportation, William T. Coleman, scotched the project, officially because Amtrak didn't try hard enough to find minority contractors to put up the wire. Mr. Coleman incidentally remarked that the passenger train is like the outhouse; there was a time when it was useful, but now we have better things.

Somehow I don't think the freedom George Washington's Continental Army left bloody footprints in the snow at Valley Forge for is the right to drive a gashog to the 7-11 to buy a sixpack.

[Junctionfan]

Mass transit a communist plot?........p-lease.

[SALfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dharmon

I think someone [:-^] has been partaking of the opiate of the masses again......

Either that, or some other potent hallucinogen.

[dharmon]

I think someone [:-^] has been partaking of the opiate of the masses again......

[DSchmitt]

I don't think mass transit is a Communist plot, but there are extreme advocates of central planning and more control of people's lives who wi***o create their ideal society. Mass transit without any alternatives would be very useful to them. This is counter to the principles the USA was founded on.

The automobile has given more people more freedom to travel, when and where they want, than has ever been achieved previously in history. Some mass transit advocates, who may be but are not all centrists, can't see a way to beat the auto, so they want to destroy its utility through extreme controls and through high taxes to subsidize their pet projects. There is a need for some mass transit, but many of the proposals are boondoggles. Fortunately they usually don't get very far.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kissmycaboose7

http://www.ti.org/Metroconclusions.html

Now I know were they are coming from...

Does this include the Health Department as well?[?][%-)][:-,][#dots][swg]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kissmycaboose7

http://www.ti.org/Metroconclusions.html

Now I know were they are coming from...

*puts out his Cuban cigar* what's up?

[Anonymous]

http://www.ti.org/Metroconclusions.html

Now I know were they are coming from...