Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Sun, 15 Nov 1992 22:42:00 CST
From:         "Stephen H. Karlson 753-6980 (815)"
 <TA0SHK1%NIU.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject:      Re: Cars vs. Pub. Transport

The Entropy Warrior proposes a faster way of responding to the
discussion of the example he proposed:

Graham weighed in with a rather sweeping generalization >

>Rather than answer the 5 or 6 posts in this thread, I'll take this as
>representative of them all.

That may not be a productive strategy, because there are several
ideas floating around the thread.

>What you are all saying is that there is no infrastructure in the
>US to support less use of private transport.

No; compare Emily's discussion of the new tram lines in Los Angeles
with Judith's recollections of the old tram and interurban lines she
called the Yellow Cars and the Red Cars.  All of that infrastructure
was replaced with freeways and bus lines.  My original question was,
why did that infrastructure get undone?

>This is exactly the point I was making.  Further, it is a political
>decision on the part of your governments over the years that will be
>very hard to undo.

Undoing the old transit systems took 40 years.  It was a combination
of public decisions to build more roads, combined with laws that
required transit companies to bear the full cost of their tracks,
but did not require them to bear the full cost of roads; automobiles
are more convenient for some trips; furthermore, there are state and
local rules against you offering to rent space in your car to other
people (the taxi and bus utilities will have your license for that)
... I could go look up the other complications <sigh>

: I don't know whether public transport would be more "efficient"
: than what there is at the moment.  But Graham makes the only, itsy
: bitsy point I was trying to make about the silliness about "efficiency"
: that appeared here some time ago.  A Chicago School type would count in the
: "cost" of undoing all of those political decisions, psychic and monetary, to
: "prove" that the what there is is the most "efficient" solution.  Which is a
: pointless exercise anyway, since by definition, if A exists and not B, B is mo
re
: more "efficient."

No sir.  Answers to "why did A displace B when Ausbrook thinks B is more
efficient?" would not be a pointless exercise.  The answers proposed
by others don't quite do it.

I suspect that Mama Primate would be unhappy if I made inferences
about chimpanzees from what I saw in old Johnny Weissmuller movies.
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" as transit history isn't much better.
Blomberg Cepeda alluded to U.S. v. National City Lines, 186 F 2d 562
(CA7, 1951), which some people have interpreted as a conspiracy by
bus and tire manufacturers and fuel companies to induce transit
companies to replace trams with buses.  A simpler explanation is that
these manufacturers were putting together package deals comparable to
the package deals tram companies were obtaining from streetcar
manufacturers (a streetcar comes with wheels, motors and trolley pole
installed).

Graham has commented on the consequences of automobile pollution.
I'd expect an engineer to be more careful.  Trams draw their power
from a generating station.  How many additional coal miners will die
to mine additional coal?  How many more nuclear waste sites will have
to be set aside?  Tradeoffs are everywhere.  The mass versus
automotive transit debate is complicated, and I've enjoyed following
it so far.  Blomberg, I've got lots of old mass transit videos for
"Karlson and Me."  It's painful for me to have to explain why the
Red Cars and the North Shore Line are gone, and to accept that those
changes made economic sense.  But I'll do it.

Steve Karlson

38 FAST trains!
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