seabeckind
seabeckind's Journal1.5 hours? Under ideal conditions.
Ignoring gate time, load/unload time, etc. Most people call the travel time between San Fran and LA more in the 3 hour range. In clear weather.
World's most expensive job creation project? Perhaps, perhaps not. Sometimes the worth of something has to be measured in units other than dollars. Then again, we could really use some jobs, couldn't we? Especially ones which are used to make a system that can use an alternate energy source.
"urban transportation for poor people"...interesting phrasing. Like I said above. But urban mass transit is not just for the poor. Ask any resident of the large cities with a mass transit system and I have no doubt you would find that it serves all demographics. In fact, there are probably quite a few people who choose not to own a car for cost reasons.
A true transportation system would encompass each need and handle it in the best way possible for those needs. Urban mass transit (a bus is NOT mass transit -- it is a feeder), regional medium speed network, and a wide area HSR. And then air travel when the travel need cannot be satisfied in any other way.
We are being faced with some serious problems in this country and we have to solve them. The capacity of our current systems is being strained and we are in need of a paradigm change. Just like in the 50's when we were faced with a large expense to upgrade our existing system and chose instead to do the interstate. Perhaps a bad choice, but there were few options and gas was very cheap. The interstate system was not cost effective. Not by a long shot. But we did it anyway.
In the case of HSR
there are established systems that we can study to determine the best way to proceed. A good example might be China:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/01/china-will-double-its-high-speed-rail.html
I would totally disagree your position on high density requirements. HSR is much more efficient for any travel less than around 1000-1500 miles. That means that it would work well in the Minneapolis-Miami corridor, New York-Miami, New York-Chicago, etc. I think you might be confusing HSR with medium speed regional systems.
As far as cost? Much of the cost would be offset by the elimination of the cost of multiple airports and extensive highway systems. In my priority statement I was speaking of Indiana in relation to the cost and overhead of that horrific accident on I-94. There are currently 2 transit bills languishing in the legislature. But then Indiana defines mass transit as buses that indigent people use cause they can't afford to own their own cars. And nobody wants to rub shoulders with "them". BTW, snow removal in the city here is already over $5m with more than half the winter to go. Oh and no accounting for the cost in lost productivity due to the weather.
<added on edit> Thinking of the weather, our air travel over the last few weeks has been absolutely ridiculous. How much does that cost? Really cost? How much is it worth to you to not have to sit thru the night in a terminal waiting for a flight? And then 3 or 4 hours on the tarmac, pushed back from the gate and deiced 3 times? Oh yeah, I could have rented a car and driven from Minn to Indy in less time...if the cars were moving. They weren't.
And for Indiana? Just a few years ago there was a major investment in a new air terminal in Indy 10 miles farther from the city center. Couple billion. No provision for any transportation other than personal vehicles. And that's for a non-hub city with a light passenger requirement. With a HSR that would take a passenger from Indy to Chicago (the nearest hub) there would be no need for an airport in Indy. That means that billions could have been applied to HSR.
Which gives me the opportunity to point out that most studies deal with current transportation load and never consider eventual load once the system has become operational. Much like the ACA. Given a choice between a trip between San Fran city center to LA center in less than 3 hours door-to-door, can you really say people would still choose to fly? I don't want to fly period. And that's someone who used to love the convenience.
A national priority and emphasis is critically needed
In my opinion transportation is one of those things which is absolutely strangling our country, because the maintenance of the status quo has such a astronomical cost to the common people.
The common people.
I have yet to see any accounting of the true cost. None. Oh we see all the time what HSR costs and what it entails but heaven forbid we should look at the sacred cow. Meanwhile we throw another lane or two on a strangled system, add a few more deicers and radar systems, and then wave our hands and feel good -- for a little bit.
So how much do you think this little gettogether cost? Really cost? Not just in insurance payouts. But in human suffering?
"People are trapped and twisted, and you see the fear in their eyes," said Pawlik, 55, a retired utility worker. "When people are stuck in their cars, they look at you like we're Moses. 'Part the waters and save us.' We can't show no fear or panic."
He and other firefighters from the Coolspring Volunteer Fire Department quickly and quietly went about their jobs, checking the wreckage for signs of life. Three people died in the accident, which occurred Thursday afternoon near Michigan City, Ind., and nearly two dozen were injured.
"We know our limitations and what we've got to do," Pawlik said. "We're like family."
Sometimes, they didn't even realize there were cars pinned under semis until they got close. "There were people in cars you couldn't even see," he said. "It's hard to come up on a car with a person in it. … They don't want you to leave but you've got to go."
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2014/01/24/at-indiana-crash-site-drivers-trapped-and-twisted/4847121/
Meanwhile the state legislature's top priority is trying to pass a same sex marriage prohibition amendment. Oh and how to do tax breaks for business.
Good point. Forget the bond idea and just do it.
Divert money from the highways to HSR and medium speed regional transit linking to light rail in the cities.
Require any development to include links into the transit system.
Require any new venue and airport provide links to the city center. Along that line, eliminate regional and little used city airport funding to HSR and regional links. With HSR we could eliminate any air travel less than 1000 miles and cut the passenger cost per mile by a bunch.
Treat modern transportation systems as a national priority and a national interest. We have the power of eminent domain...use it. Just liek we did with the interstate system.
And for gods sake stop trying to say it can't be done because the environmentalists might not like it. That's a lie. Every environmentalist I have seen is all in favor of eliminating the fossil fuel private transportation and the consolidation of freight hauling away from individual carriers.
Lastly, anytime some moron says we don't need a transportation system point to the cities and highways in the midwest and northeast over the last couple weeks. Just how much does sitting in a car getting ZERO miles to the gallon waiting for a tow truck cost?
The boomer blame is the latest divider
There have been a couple of threads on here that put forth the argument against boomers.
My response was that it was a mistake to try to correlate the severe problems we've had in the last 35 years to a "generational" group. There were young people who swallowed the Reagan swill as well as boomers. The stupidity transcended age.
A better exerpt from the article to dispute the boomer blame is:
"We have two events happening that may simply be coincident in time in their genesis, but they are working synchronistically in a nasty way. And the driver of one is unquestionably class, not generational. I can’t get over the way young people are falling hook, line and sinker for the efforts to divert attention from the real perps, which are overwhelmingly the top wealthy and their allies and operatives, such as CEOs and C-level executives at large companies, and the large cohort of neoliberal pundits. (Not all are on board; for instance, I know a private equity firm head who loves annoying people in his industry by telling them they need to pay a ton more in taxes and donates generously to “progressive” candidates, but people like him are few in number).
The first is that a small group of audacious, visionary, committed, radical conservatives set in motion a plan in 1971 to undo the New Deal and cut social safety nets back. They did this via a concerted effort to change values and deeply inculcate pro-business thinking, to give economic “freedom” primacy over democracy, and to train lawyers to think like economists (which is at odds with foundational legal concepts like equity) and over time, pack the courts with corporate-friendly judges. The key figures of this movement and its intellectual leaders were all born well before or during the Depression..."
Of course but halfassed
The natural progression was for innovative technology to progess from a luxury for few to widespread acceptance with competing implemetations to finally a standardization of the technology at the infrastructure level and then leading to a public utility.
Eg, electricity was available and very expensive and limited to those who could afford it. Cities then began expanding it, ie, competition between DC and AC, 60 cycle 2-phase, etc. Then the gov't (we, the people) standardized, did the grid, Rural Electrification, etc. Yipee...next step toasters, lighting, etc.
At least that's the way it was before the corporations took over and proceeded to divide the herd.
We are well past the time when cellular should be removed from the private monopolies and made a utility and part of the public domain.
Same, same cable teevee. True ala carte with value added.
WiFi and broadband.
These things should belong to society and be controlled and regulated by society so everybody gets it.
Dovetails with the Krugmann thread
on DU:
KRUGMAN: 'We can’t have REAL debates, because the cockroaches and zombies get in the way'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024270393
And then there's the one on HuffPuff about Klein wanting to spin off another forum.
We desperately need an intelligent forum to have discussions about policy and recommend changes in direction...one protected from the screamers, trolls, and knuckledraggers who get all their intelligence from Rush.
But it goes back to how do you destroy the greatest country the earth has seen in centuries? Other than read British history, the same way you eat an elephant...one bite at time.
The Fairness Doctrine. I agree it badly needed updating based on the advancement of technology but tat was an excuse to dismantle it.
Glass-Steagel: I agree it badly needed updating but...
Newspaper/journalism paradigm: I agree it...
You get the idea, one bite at a time.
"...in the Libyan fable it is told
That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
'With our own feathers, not by others' hands,
Are we now smitten.'"
--AESCHYLUS
525 - 456 B.C.
Perhaps a good place to start might be to require an update to corporate charters for public companies, one I have proposed before, that every employee has an implicit ownership in the company accrding to tenure. And has a voting representative on the board.
Next reverse the Reagan executive order that gutted the Sherman act. Do we know anybody in the Executive branch who could do that?
Another bandaid
to keep from upsetting the corporatists.
Rather than putting the burden on our "capitalist" society to insist on an economic environment that would create the jobs, the burden is shifted to those who are already burdened with a reduction in their standard of living because of the attitudes of those corporatists.
We have no direction, no national interest (other than some fake wars on shit), just a wandering in whatever path provides the most profit to private interests.
It's all bullshit. Where the hel is FDR when we need him? Or Teddy R to break up the trusts? Or the big labor organizers? Or a new Pecora commission?
How about some f'n taxes on the people and corporations that are sitting on our capital?
Meanwhile we can help out our brothers while we fix the problems that put them where they are.
It's awfully tiresome seeing big buildings with "For Lease" signs in front of them and a fake phone number cause the corp that owns them gets more benefit from keeping them empty than actually employing people to make them operational. Meanwhile walmart is full of crap from somewhere else, Samsung and LG are coming out my ears, and I can't find a decent toaster. And those same rich people are waiting for us little people to run out of money so they can steal our art museums.
</rant>
Sad day that it has come to this
that Boeing uses extortion and plays one state against the other to further their profits.
How much in the way of taxpayer money from all over the state of Washington was involved? I had heard that the concessions for Indiana was over a billion. And the promise of no union at all.
Sad day.
Maybe it is time to put that state's rights bullshit to bed forever. Make a level playing field between states so that it is united. Forced Boeing to become a foreign company in name in match their attitude. And then tax them accordingly.
So question: what prevents any state from declaring eminent domain over a plant (wouldn't that be abandoned property?), like the one Boeing has that they won't be paying taxes on (which means they get free infrastructure), and make HSR equipment? Use the tax concession to pay off the extortionists and get rid of them, then turn it into an employee-owned business?
In fact, why couldn't that be a function of the federal gov't? I thought that was the whole idea of the ONE, out of many.
Oh, never mind...just gets me ... frustrated to see my country come to this.
As I thought about it, your comment really got my dander up
Because:
"would be paying $1.4 trillion to people for creating jobs"
That, in fact, is exactly what our gov't has been doing. Exactly. That's the trickle-down idea. We've been giving subsidies to companies that outsource. We have been giving money to the banks in order for them to fulfill their debts to the "job creators".
"paying for school"
That's one thing that really bothers me about the movement in the "right to work" states where they use taxpayer and potential employee's money to provide specialized training for workers in their factories. That thing that long ago was an overhead to the company has been shifted away from the company and allows them to minimize employee overhead. When I went to work for a company I presented myself with the generalized knowedge necessary for that position and then the company provided the specialized training for their operation. In fact, that's how I went to graduate school, paid for by the company with a salary at the same time.
And then there's your invocation of a union. A union IS a cooperative. That is the whole principle upon which it is based. And then to suggest that they should become one? Seriously?
And lastly, "I have never wanted to count on the Master to do for me when I can do it for myself"
That, too, is the basic principle of a co-op. All you do is replace the word Master with co-op. That it provides a way collectively for the members to do the stuff they cannot do individually. In effect you said you could never be the member of a co-op. Or a union. Or, maybe, a democratic society?
Wasn't it Lincoln who had a quote about gov't along those lines?
</rant>
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Gender: MaleHometown: Indiana
Home country: USA
Current location: Indianapolis
Member since: Thu Dec 8, 2005, 10:45 PM
Number of posts: 1,957
