From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Clinton, Gore, and the End of the Automobile Age
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 03:35:53 GMT

In article <1992Jul23.230804.1294@ccu.umanitoba.ca> ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca writes:
>In article <BruItw.9BD@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>I guess that depends on how you define "long distance".  I usually fly when
>>I want to go a "long distance" (more than about a three or four hour drive).
>On a private plane, no doubt.

>>if you need a car on the other end?  Hail a cab?  What a mess.  Simply driving
>>to where you want to be is much more simple, direct, convenient, and 
>>comfortable.

>You are projecting your rural/suburban situation on urbanites.

On the contrary, I am an urbanite myself.  I just have the power to see beyond
the end of my nose and realize that government edicts have influences wider than
the areas where they are intentionally targeted.  A perfect example of this is
that farmers in Kansas have to purchase air pollution reducing systems for
their cars because the government wants to reduce air pollution in LA.  How can
your justify that kind of intrusion on the guy from Kansas?  Such equipment adds
hundreds of dollars to the cost of his car, butdoes not benefit him at all.  I
can see this despite the fact that I have never lived in Kansas, and live in the
heart of Los Angeles (Hollywood to be exact).

>Anyone commuting
>into Paris would take twice as long driving as they would using the Metro.

I would attribute that to the fact that the city grew around the train system.
MY city did not grow that way, and it is just as ridiculous to ask me to 
ride a train around LA as it is to ask a parisian to drive down narrow streets
places with inadequate parking.  Given an even choice, it seems that people
overwhelmingly prefer to drive than to ride trains.  If thta wasn't the case
why is it that people who have the money to choose either almost always choose
to drive?

>The
>strike in 87 showed that the city can't function normally without public
>transportation.

Of course not, because they were already using trains, there was no need to
improve the roads and build more parking spaces.  That doesn't show that big
cities cannot function normally without trains.  It shows that once a city
comes to rely on them, it cannot change to cars immediately.  The fact that LA
can function without trains (and it's a much bigger city than Paris) proves the 
opposite.

>I happened to be visiting there and rode with a collegue to his
>lab; it took 3 hrs compared to his usual 30 min commute. 

No wonder parisians always have such a bad attitude! ;-)

Isn't the possibility of such strikes an argument against such forms of
transportation?  I have no desire to have some union telling me
where I can and cannot travel.

>And hailing a cab and giving your destination is surely simpler, and
>at least as direct and convenient (no parking) as driving, especially
>if the city is unfamiliar.

I think cabs are great for visitors, I use them all the time when I am on
business trips in other cities.  I would hate to have to use them in my
normal daily life.  They would be horribly inconvenient.  They also
lack a certain kind of privacy that I would hate to give up.  It is also 
hard to be spontaneous and just drive around exploring town when you are
paying a stranger to take you.  How would you just drive out to the country
and look at the trees in a cab?  Isn't that what all of the environmentalists
seem ot think is the most important activity in the world?

>>So what have I done beyond your nose?  I am annoyed by the folks around LA
>>who insist that I pay for a train system I hope I never have to use.  Such
>>people are overstepping my "nose boundary".  If some people want to build
>>a train and charge people to ride on it that's fine with me, but I don't want
>>to have anything to do with such a waste of money, time, and resources.

>In a densely populated area, everyone benefits from public
>transportation.  

I certainly wouldn't use it unless I had no choice, and you could claim
that everyone would benefit if everyone had to pay a certain class of people
to stay home and not drive at all (the recipients would benefit financially
while the folks who pay would "benefit" from less traffic, but that doesn't
mean that it is a worthwhile trade-off.  Besides, tho are you telling ME that
the money I earned would benefit me the most if I spent it on YOUR little pet
project?  What if I think your project is a dumb idea and a waste of MY money?
Should I have no say in the matter?

>Witness Paris, London or NYC. Drivers would certainly
>suffer in NYC if the subway shut down. 

Again, it's another argument AGAINST subways.  In LA if the trains shut down
(and there are a couple of lines) there's no significant impact at all.

>Beyond the question of
>congestion, electric trains produce less polution and everyone
>benefits from that too. 

Do you think that your conclusion that something would be "better" for me
give you any right to cram it down my throat?  What about the costs?  
What about the inconvenience?  What about MY rights?  If having trains in LA
would improve the air quality by 50% and I would have to stop driving my
car in return, I would keep the car and the dirty air.  Who are you to tell me
I am wrong?

>Similar justification (arguable, perhaps) is
>used for diesel buses.

Yeah, I hear that buses are "cleaner" all the time, but the ONLY air 
pollution problem I have directly smelled (as opposed to reading about
as readings from instruments) is when I am  blasted in the face with exhaust as
those buses take off at a corner.  I hate that!

>I'm not familiar with LA but there are cities where public transportation
>is not just safer and cleaner, but necessary, and for many purposes, simpler
>faster, more convenient, and if you like reading, more comfortable.

More convenient?  Absolutely not.  How can you shop for groceries and take 
home more than you can carry at once?  How can you travel at odd hours of
the night?  (And do women dare travel at night where they have to be out
of their car between destinations?)  What if where you are going is far from
a station?  What if you live far from a station?  I can think of nothing 
more inconvenient that is currently being imposed on the public by
eco-busybodies than public transportation.  (We already have "mass 
transportation"...mass transportation via individual automobiles as opposed
to government-controlled train and bus systems.)

--Brian
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy