From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Clinton, Gore, and the End of the Automobile Age
Date: 27 Jul 92 15:19:37 GMT
Organization: LLNL

In article <Bs13Bu.tJ@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>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:
::Anyone commuting
::into Paris would take twice as long driving as they would using the Metro.

	The same is probably true of a lot of public-transit-equipped
cities elsewhere in the world. Try driving through the middle of NYC
or Philly or San Francisco some time.

: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?

	Even choice? When people have the choice, they often prefer
public transit. About half the commuters who cross San Francisco Bay
between San Francisco and Oakland go by BART, for example. Part of the
problem is where one comes from or wants to go to somewhere the trains
and buses don't go.

::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?

	I concede that that's a good excuse for driving a car, but
that does not apply to everyday commutes and shopping trips and so
forth.

	Furthermore, one can do plenty of sightseeing from buses and
trains. The local buses all have big windows, and BART has them too.
Amtrak's rolling stock has windows that are too small (bah!), and the
same is true for CalTrain and the SEPTA commuter-train cars.

::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.

	But are roads immune? In France, some truckers went on strike
and blocked some roads with their vehicles.

::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?

	50% ???

	It would probably be 90% or 99%.

	There would still be power-plant pollution, but that can be
controlled much more easily than car pollution.

::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!

	That's because (1) car exhaust pipes open up way downwards and
(2) cars are not as big as buses, so there is less exhaust per car.

	Buses can be made fairly clean; one good cleanup is an exhaust
filter (also works for diesel trucks, locomotives, and boats).

::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.

	I agree. Reading is one of my favorite pastimes when riding a
public-transportation vehicle.

: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

	One uses a shopping cart :-)

	Or shops more often :-):-)

:the night?  (And do women dare travel at night where they have to be out

	I concede that difficulty. BUT, one usually doesn't have much
competition in the middle of the night.

: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 

	The solution:

	The park-and-ride lot. That way, one has the best of both
worlds :-) One drives from one's suburban home to a P&R lot, since
most suburban bus systems are, to tell the truth, not terribly
convenient. But once one gets on the bus or train, one does not have
to drive through the typical crowded city streets.

	There is NO one-size-fits-all solution.

:more inconvenient that is currently being imposed on the public by
:eco-busybodies than public transportation.  (We already have "mass 

	Horseshit.

	Mass transit has been VERY convenient for me in many of the
places I have lived over my life. Sure, subway trains and trolleys
don't go everywhere, but they are a nice convenience when they are
available :-)

:transportation"...mass transportation via individual automobiles as opposed
:to government-controlled train and bus systems.)

	Individual cars on government-controlled roads, that is.