HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Date: 22 Jul 92 17:53:38 GMT
Followup-To: sci.environment
Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or.

In article <Brsryo.BxL@watserv1.waterloo.edu> rlbell@babbage.waterloo.edu (Richard Bell) writes:

>Mass transit may, or may not, be cheaper (it is for me but your mileage
>may vary), but it is definately safer.  I was in a GM bus that was rear ended
>by a compact.  

Unfortunately at times it appears that our local bus company (a
government agency actually) must like this type of accident.  It is
common for busses to stop right on the road, even where they could
find a place to get out of traffic easily.  Some bus stops are even
places as though to encourage this.  Doesn't do much for public
relations.

>"Environmentally friendlier", a bus can easily carry 40 people (and if I
>were shorter, I might even say comfortably) a non-carpooling vehicle seats
>one.  Compare one bus versus forty cars: unless they are all chevy sprints,
>or worse, they use more materials to build, collectively burn more fuel than
>the bus, and definitely take up more space if not recycled.

Certainly a bus *can* save resources and if used wisely it will do
so.  This does not mean that it always *will* save resources,
however.  That depends on how it is used.  There are at least 3
things which can make a bus less efficient than individual cars:

1.  The bus is quite likely not full except at peak hours.  During
off hours here it is common to see a bus with only a few passengers,
probably being less fuel efficient per passenger mile than if each
passenger occupied a separate small car.

2.  A bus must follow a specified route determined by where people
can embark or disembark.  Often that bus travels many extra miles 
compared to the route someone would drive.  In some cases passenger 
Jones may even have to go to a transit station and board a different 
bus, sometimes traveling 2 to 4 times the distance he would if he 
drove.  The bus company of course quotes numbers of passenger miles 
traveled without regard to how many of those miles were excess 
necessitated by the way bus routes run.  Much of this is of course 
inevitable.  Just be aware that 100 passenger miles on a bus does not 
necessarily replace 100 miles driving in private cars.

3.  A bus will use more fuel to start and stop because of its larger
mass.  If several people get on or off at each stop this is probably
not a disadvantage.  However a stop for 1 or 2 passengers will be
less fuel efficient that a similar stop with a much smaller car.
Furthermore if the bus blocks the road when it stops it will cause 
all the cars backed up behind it to waste fuel and pollute the air 
while they wait.

I'm not saying busses are not fuel efficient.  I just think we need to 
look at each situation before claiming that mass transit will save 
fuel and reduce pollution.  Sometimes it will, sometimes it won't.
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Date: 27 Jul 92 15:30:52 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <4594@balrog.ctron.com> smith@ctron.com writes:
>In article <1992Jul27.020800.8476@cco.caltech.edu>, carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:
>
>>>     Another thing, the free-market people certainly did not come up with 
>>>     insuring accounts in federally-insured institutions with the 'full
>>>     faith of the US treasury'.
>
>>True, but it was, unfortunately, in the name of the free market that an idiot
>>decided to relax the regulatory constraints without tying insurability to the
>>business practices of the S&Ls.
>
>Yes, but we shouldn't take this as a warning that giving all the power to the
>gov't isn't a good thing. I'm sure President Quayle will be able to tidy up
>that mess real handily just as soon as we get rid of the Bill of Rights.

     1)  The discussion has absolutely nothing to do with fundamental
     rights (e.g. there is no fundamental right to have one's savings deposits
     insured by the federal government, nor is there a fundamental right
     involved in government regulation of savings institutions).  Thus
     any such remarks about the Bill of Rights are simply obfuscation.

--
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Democrats & Ecology
From: estell@uoftcse.cse.utoledo.edu (John K. Estell)
Date: 21 Jul 92 08:00:32 EST


For those who didn't see ABC World News Tonight on Monday, 20 July,
there was a long "behind the scenes" feature on Clinton's bus tour
through the Midwest.  The story focused on all of the preparation
and rehearsal involved in presenting Clinton's "spontaneous" 
meetings with the voters.  At one stop, the scene is a farm with a
few hay bales in front of a barn.  But because there's bees hanging
out by the barn, the Clinton campaign calls in an exterminator to
kill the bees, lest they annoy their candidate's "I'm one of you"
shows.

For the urbanites who are reading this, bees are essential to farming
as they're the ones that do most of the pollinating.  No pollination,
no crops, and no food.  

If Clinton and Gore are so "environmentally correct", then why do they
allow their advance team to wantonly kill bees and other insects?


==============================================================================
John K. Estell, Computer Science & Engineering Dept., The University of Toledo
estell@uoftcse.cse.utoledo.edu, estell@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu
   "There's no place like $FC58."
       - What Dorothy would have said if she owned an Apple II


-- 
==============================================================================
John K. Estell, Computer Science & Engineering Dept., The University of Toledo
estell@uoftcse.cse.utoledo.edu, estell@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu
   "There's no place like $FC58."
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Cars, Cities and Choices
Keywords: Cars Transit Cities
Date: 31 Jul 92 05:17:18 GMT
Organization: LLNL

In article <1992Jul31.000219.9704@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <1992Jul29.222232.6070@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul29.144248.2912@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
::	That would be a good objection _only_ if one was guaranteed
::parking just in front of whatever store you wanted to shop in. C'mon,
::Gary Coffman, what makes you so sure you won't have any competition?
:
:Queing theory. On any given day, my odds of finding a parking place
:in front of the store I wish to patronize is proportional to the number
:of other customers at the strip center who simulaneously want to shop
:at that store instead of another store in the center. At the Mall, 
:*everyone* wants to park next to the Mall entrance regardless of which
:store they want to patronize. Therefore I'm almost always going to get
:a better parking place at the strip center.

	Sounds like your reasoning is terribly mixed up about what
makes parking space available. It is the _absence_ of others trying to
shop at the store you want to shop at that makes parking spaces
available, and how do you guarantee that?
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Is nuclear energy "polluting"? (was Re: Is car pooling for real?
Date: 27 Jul 92 20:46:43 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <JMC.92Jul25193152@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>Well, I didn't think I would be in agreement with Victor Yodaiken
>for very long.  According to what I read in _Nuclear News_, the
>French breeder program is not considered by them an abysmal failure,
>although it has had many more difficulties than expected.
>
>Anyway, what's the point.  Does Victor Yodaiken think that breeder
>reactors cannot be made to work?

No. I think, rather, that arguments of the form "the technical problems with
the nuclear fuel cycle are solved, only crazy environmental extremists
think otherwise", are not supported by the facts. The French experience
shows that the engineering of large scale nuclear power systems remains
an experimental project, and that even though simple arithmetic may "prove"
that an engineering technique works, the universe does not have to care.

-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Xref: sparky sci.environment:10126 sci.physics:11764 sci.energy:3722
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Monday, 27 Jul 1992 16:40:16 CDT
From: Alan Hinds <U32472@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?

I'm surprised that nobody has brought up the question of the quality of
travel time in this thread.  I am a veteran of 25 years of enjoyable
car-pooling with excellent company.  During my daily commutes I could
pick up a little extra sleep, carry on enjoyable conversation, get in
some reading, get an early start on the work day, enjoy the scenery,
daydream -- do whatever I wanted.  Likewise on public transit.  I always
ride with a book, newspaper, or something I can work on.  I do not enjoy
driving, and resent the time lost in the activity.  My car pooling ended
when I changed jobs, and I miss my former travel mates.  I solved the
problem of traveling to my new job by renting an apartment just two blocks
from where I work, though I realise that to some, the daily 5 minute walks
to and from work would be excessive.  - Alan R. Hinds
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Letters to the Editor:  Blazing Ta
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Jul23224323@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <1992Jul24.102741.29128@s1.gov>
Date: 24 Jul 92 10:45:51

In article <1992Jul24.102741.29128@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:


   In article <JMC.92Jul23224323@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
   #- In spite of all the errors in Blazing Tattles, the promoters of these
   #- stories still have a pretty good chance of saving Saddam Hussein's
   #- ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.

	   How does that follow?

   /Loren

By preventing the enforcement of the terms of the cease fire.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
From: ledwards@leland.Stanford.EDU (Laurence James Edwards)
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 06:11:22 GMT

In article <JMC.92Jul28211023@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
|> I have driven in L.A. fairly recently and would not describe the
|> freeways as parking lots.  I wonder if the perception that they
|> are would be dispelled by actual timings or is gloom loving stronger
|> than that.

I used to live in LA and if you are going with traffic during commuting
hours it is indeed a parking lot (this was 8 years ago and it is worse now ...
I was down there a couple of months ago) If you want to experience traffic
moving at the speed limit during the week on a fairly consistent basis you'd
probably have to restrict your travel to be between 10am and 3pm or between
10pm and 7am. Even during those times you are bound to hit a small jam or two,
when I was down there in June, on only one occasion (on a Sunday) did
I actually make it from on-ramp to off-ramp without coming to a complete stop
somewhere in between. Granted that my travel time was not affected that
much (maybe 10-15mins or so) but driving bumber to bumper is not my idea
of fun ...

Larry Edwards
edwards@sunrise.stanford.edu

 
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9899 sci.physics:11527
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Date: 24 Jul 92 01:22:14 GMT
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera

In article <1992Jul23.000116.4102@s1.gov>, lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>In article <JMC.92Jul22091522@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>>The Interstate system is financed by the gasoline tax, more than 100
>>percent, I believe.  In fact the lawyers want to tap the gasoline
>>tax to finance their public transit boondoggles.
>
>	If one does some VERY clever accounting, then just MAYBE. But
>total costs are:
>
>	1979 US government agencies on highways:
>
>	$71.2 billion total
>
>which breaks down to
>
>	$44.3 billion in "user fees"
>
>and
>
>	$26.9 billion in subsidies.
>
>The "user fees" include vehicle registration fees, fuel taxes, and
>tolls.
>
>The subsidies are all sums whose sources are something other than user
>fees -- income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, bond-issue
>proceeds, etc.
>
>	Thus, highways are 38% subsidized.
>
>	Does that answer your question?
>
>	So one has a choice of riding in a subsidized mass-transit
>vehicle or driving on a subsidized road. Take your pick.

Not quite.  The choice is between driving on a subsidized road or riding in a
subsidized mass-transit vehicle that is driving on a subsidized road.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
From: dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska)
Subject: Re: More Global Warming
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder, CO
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 17:53:56 GMT

In article <BruIzu.9DA@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>In article <DmR-_H#@engin.umich.edu> blagdon@engin.umich.edu (Kenneth James Clark ) writes:
>>In article <BrsG3D.37H@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>>What are the "full expenses" that we are suffering under today?  I hear
>>>a lot of claims that doomsday is around the corner, but everywhere I look
>>>I see thetremendous improvements brought about through the industrial
>>>revolution, and none of the "hazards" of it.  Where are the dead bodies?
>
>>In the ground? :-)
>
>>Do large numbers of people have to die for you to see a problem?  
>
>No, but I need to see SOMETHING to serve as evidence of a problem.  Dead
>bodies would be a good example.
>
>>Maybe you meant to say "What exactly are the hazards?"
>
>I meant to ask both and you answered neither.
>
>--Brian
>

It was either the cancer society or the lung & lung assoc that estimated
health costs from air pollution at 10's of billions of dollars per year.  Air
pollution and greenhouse gases correlate pretty well, so there is one cost.
-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
From: finn@isi.edu (Greg Finn)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Date: 31 Jul 92 15:57:44 GMT
Reply-To: finn@dalek.isi.edu (Greg Finn)
Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute

In article <1992Jul31.070451.26991@ccu.umanitoba.ca> ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca writes:
>In article <22089@venera.isi.edu> finn@dalek.isi.edu (Greg Finn) writes:
>If they improve the quality of the air, and reduce congestion, everyone
>benefits and subsidies are fair.

	NO.  Why should Marvin Q. Public in Podunk pay for LA's Metro
Rail?  Because Southern California has so much clout in Congress that
it can lift a $billion from the Federal till?

	Who primarily benefits from the cleaner LA air and lower LA
congestion?  Farmers in the midwest?  Garment workers in NYC?  Primary
benefits are to Angelenos.  Oddly enough, I think that the people that
primarily benefit are those who should bear the most of the cost.

>>You build a fairly financed convenient system and people like myself
>>might use it.

>So you're waiting for a fare increase?

	I'm waiting for the system to be financed in such a way that I
and fellow Angelenos pay for it rather than farmers in the Dakotas.
--
Gregory Finn	(310) 822-1511
Information Sciences Institute, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: foy@aero.org (Richard Foy)
Subject: Re: Cars, Cities and Choices
Keywords: Cars Transit Cities
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 22:13:22 GMT

In article <4628@balrog.ctron.com> smith@ctron.com writes:

>of the real world, it's a sound bite, not a fact.  Certainly my reply is a

don't you mean, "its a bit bite" or "its a byte bite".   :-)


Richard Foy           Standard Disclaimer
Xref: sparky sci.environment:10251 sci.energy:3777
From: smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Cars vs. Bikes (Was: Why electric cars?) and carpooling stuff.
Date: 29 Jul 92 16:35:49 GMT
Reply-To: smith@ctron.com
Followup-To: sci.environment
Organization: Cabletron Systems, Inc.

In article <155v0nINNlsl@agate.berkeley.edu>, utidjian@remarque.berkeley.edu (David M.V. Utidjian) writes:
>o Many people seem to have the impression that they have a "right" to
>drive a car.  Not so, in California anyway, strange to some of you as

This is a artifact of the doctrine of implied powers.  In fact, no state
has the right to arbitrarily designate any activity as privilege for the
purposes of regulation, that is prohibited in no uncertain terms by the 9th
Amendment.  It is a fiction which is promulgated and protected by people like
you who believe the Constitution strictly delineates all the rights we are
allowed to have.  In fact, the 9th specifically reserves all rights NOT so
delineated.  It requires only recognition of the right, so far withheld by
most states because they can get away with it so long as people do not under-
stand the Constitution.

Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com) No, I don't speak for Cabletron.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Daily I'd go over to Congress - that grand old benevolent national asylum - and
report on the inmates there.  Never seen a body of men with tongues more handy,
or information more uncertain.  If one of those men had been present when the
Deity was on the point of saying "Let there be light" we never would've had it.
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Date: 23 Jul 92 00:11:08 GMT
Organization: LLNL

In article <JMC.92Jul22151713@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
:My own opinion is that we should build more freeways as necessary, that
:measures to force people to work odd hours are oppressive.  They are
:particularly harmful for families with children.  Also they restrict
:people's social choices.  There are good reasons for suffering the
:inefficiency of allowing almost everyone to work 9-5, Monday through
:Friday.

	What if some people _like_ working odd hours?

	Or have suitable arrangements to take care of the children?

	This sounds like a dubious form of social engineering.

/Loren
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9908 sci.physics:11536 sci.energy:3610
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Computer controlled cars (was re: high-tech highways)
Date: 24 Jul 92 03:07:32 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <BsR-4f_@engin.umich.edu> blagdon@engin.umich.edu (Kenneth James Clark ) writes:
>
>Alright, someone correct me with concrete examples.  I was told earlier
>this year (by Aviation Week and Space Technology) that Airbus's new
>jet liner was the first to be fully automated.  I think you folks are
>getting carried away with this idea that the nation's air traffic is
>automated.  Parts of the newest planes are fly-by-wire, but that does
>*not* mean that "most of the nations commercial airlines fly automated
>systems".

Fly by wire and autopilot are two separate things. Aircraft have used
autopilots since the 1930s. Automation does not necessarily require
electricity. The Lockheed L1011 has a zero-zero capable autopilot
that can take off, cruise, and land the aircraft without pilot intervention.
Only taxing to and from the terminal requires pilot control, and even that
could be done by autopilot except for the arachic men with wands that
currently direct grounded airliners. It's been documented that transatlantic
flight crews often sleep during the flight. Manual control is usually still
used by pilots during takeoff and landing, but that's more a macho thing than 
a necessity.

Gary
Xref: sparky sci.environment:10011 sci.physics:11650 sci.energy:3677
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Computer controlled cars (was re: high-tech highways)
Date: 25 Jul 92 16:42:48 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Jul24.042401.23718@pta.pyramid.com.au> bgg@pta.pyramid.com.au (Ben Golding) writes:
>In article <11008@cis.rand.org> rodger@rand.ORG (Rodger Madison) writes:
>>In article <R4Q-##A@engin.umich.edu>, blagdon@engin.umich.edu (Kenneth James Clark ) writes:
>>> The only system I can think of that currently makes all driving decisions
>>> for you is mass transit.
>>
>>Well, as a previous poster pointed out, most of the nations commercial
>>airlines fly automated systems.
>
>But the commercial airlines are just mass transit, and a very
>successful successful transit system it is too.  The posters that
>continually assert that the American public doesn't like mass transit
>seems to forget this.

Yes, airlines are mass transit, and extremely heavily subsidized mass
transit at that. A system that is currently losing gobs of money *despite*
that monster subsidy. However, just because a bus uses wheels doesn't mean
a car can't use them too. And just because a subsidized airplane uses
an autopilot doesn't mean a car can't use a similiar system. The aircraft
automatic controls form an existance proof for the technology, they don't
mean that if cars adapt automatic control they have to also adapt wings
and jet engines.

Gary