Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:37:09 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>,
    WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Metro is 30
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

At 3/31/2006 06:21 AM, Candy Madigan wrote:
>At 11:41 AM 3/30/2006, you wrote:
> >At 3/30/2006 07:30 AM, Candy Madigan wrote:
> >
> > >I have said for years (and of course, everyone always tells me how wrong I
> > >am) that we need to raise gas prices to $15/gallon and use the extra money
> > >to pay for mass transit.  The reason I (and I am guessing most people like
> > >me) don't use public transportation is that it is totally inconvenient and
> > >doesn't go where I need to go when I need to go there.
> >
> >Let me join the legions of people who have said how wrong you are on this.
> >;-)
> >
> >Mass transit works well in large cities where the population density is
> >high.  It also works well enough between large cities for moving from one
> >to another.  It does not work at all well outside of cities for getting
> >from one random point to another.  It can't, and pretending that it can
> >just shows a serious lack of understanding of the problem.
>
>Didn't I *just* say that the reason I don't use it is that it doesn't go
>where I want to go?  Isn't that what I said?  I would have *sworn* that was
>what I just said.

Yes, you did.  That's not exactly what I said though.  I said it *can't* go
where you want it to go.  It's the way it is for good economic and physical
reasons, and that isn't going to change, whether we tax gas at $15/gal or
not.  That was what *I* was saying in reaction to what you said.

>   There are ways that mass transit could be set up to get
>people from where they are to where they want to be, and I would have no
>objection to subsidizing those ways with an exhorbitant tax on gas if I
>thought they would actually *use* the tax money on mass transit.

And this is the intent I got from your prior message that I was objecting
to.  I think you are wrong about this...and I was trying to give some
reasons for it without going into specific detail.

Perhaps I'm wrong?  What ways are you referring to that would let mass
transit satisfy the needs of a dispersed population?  If you've come up
with a method that everyone else has missed, we need to learn about it (and
you may want to patent it too!).

>Come on, SF Fandom has one of the highest concentrations of brain power
>around, if we aren't smart enough to figure out a way to do it, then it
>can't be done.  (Oh, and I do have several ideas on how to do it, but I'd
>rather not be rudely shot down again).

I don't think it can be done economically.  If we don't care how
inefficient it is with resources, we could set up *something*, but it would
be far more expensive and wasteful than the current alternative of
individual vehicles...and improving efficiency is supposedly the reason to
go to mass transit in the first place, right?  Going to it and being *less*
efficient would be counter-productive.

I read a few years ago that someone had done a study of BART (San
Francisco's mass transit system) and found that if you'd skipped the mass
transit and just painted lines down the middle of every road in the area,
and built half-width efficient commuter cars and *given* them to the 6
million or so people in the area covered by BART, you'd be able to move
just as many people *more* efficiently in terms of time and energy and it
would have cost less and taken less time to set up and cost less to
maintain than the combination of BART and the current road system (which
BART didn't, and can't, replace entirely).  Even the pollution produced
would be lower.  About all BART comes out on top in is political points for
pacifying the folks who have internalized the absolute rule that
"mass-transit=good, individual transit=bad".

I'm sorry you saw my objection as rude.  I *did* put a smiley on the "you
are wrong" line to indicate I meant it humorously, based on your own
wording, not as a means of "shooting you down".

-- Mike B.
--
All the easy problems have been solved.