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: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 14:27:31 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.005849.16417@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>In article <BrrBLr.n1n@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>You never cease to amaze me.  You really think people have a better quality of life when they 
>>life when they cannot drive where they want to go?  Tell me, do YOU own a car?

>	I don't own one, but I might acquire one over the next year or
>so, because of the difficulty of getting around Livermore without one.
>I intend to get a small one if I ever do get one.

Well, I have never been in Liverpool, but I find it difficult to believe that
riding a train is as convenient as having a car.  What if you want to go somewhere
the train doesn't go?  What if you want to do it at a time the train isn't
running?  What if you buy more than you can carry in your hands?

If cars are so inconvenient, then why is it that when people have an equal
choice, they generally take the car?

By the way, why do you want a small one?  Wouldn't a bigger one be more 
comfortable and useful?  I guess big cars don't go over so well in the
sack cloth and ashes crowd, eh?

>	And why does one have to drive if one has good public transit.

"Good" public transit?  I have seen some "better" than others (say, 
Washington DC vs. New York), but I would never trade even the best one for my 
car.

>I've acquired a lot of info about Bay Area public transit so I have no
>trouble getting to San Francisco or Berkeley or wherever I might want
>to go.

I guess that depends on whether you want to go where the train goes, doesn't it?

>	And is a car really that convenient if you can't find a place
>to park it? 

I generally don't have a problem with that.  By the way, you ceen to have a
certain urban-centric viewpoint.  You are not trying to imply that suburban
and rural folks have the same problems and needs are you?

You should also remember that the US is a very large country with lots of 
open space.  I think that for most places a mix of private cars and 
airliners are the best personal travel system available.

>It is fortunate that BART (for example) has
>park-and-rides, and I wish they were more common, since I am
>discovering that long-distance driving is not my most favorite activity.

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).

Park-n-rides are fine if the train is going where you want it to go, but what 
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.

>>Why don't you stop being a hypocrite and practice what you preach rather 
>>than trying to dictate to the rest of us what you think we ought to do?  What
>>makes you such an expert on what would make ME happier?  The evidence that has
>>appeared so far indicates that your knowledge on this subject is quite weak, as  is
>>your grasp of the concept of individual rights.

>	As the saying goes, your rights stop where my nose begins.

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.

>	Why hog the roads if there is some high-quality mass transit
>(low-quality mass transit is another question :-)? After all, one can
>do sightseeing and reading without too much trouble on a high-quality
>system like BART.

I have been in SF many times and I have never had any inclination to use
BART.  I usually had better things to do with my time than deal with the hassle
of a train system.

I should point out that we DO have mass transportation...mass transportation
via private automobiles.  What you seem to want is GOVERNMENT-FUNDED TRAIN 
transportation, not "mass transportation".

--Brian