A Travel and vacations forum. TravelBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » TravelBanter forum » Travel Regions » USA & Canada
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

America travel pointers



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #101  
Old August 23rd, 2006, 05:38 PM posted to alt.california,rec.travel.usa-canada
Hatunen
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,483
Default America travel pointers

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 11:01:12 +0200, B
wrote:

On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:56:59 -0700, Hatunen wrote:

On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:23:19 +0200, B
wrote:

On 21 Aug 2006 11:07:22 -0700, "Iceman" wrote:

without mass transit you can't have higher density.

This statement makes no sense at all. Cities have been very densely
populated for thousands of years. In fact, without high density, mass
transit tends to be prohibitively expensive, but the converse is not
true at all.


Which came first, the density or the transit?


The density of course, but that certainly doesn't contradict what I
said.

The low population density of US urban areas is caused by the relative
abundance of cheap land in the peripheries of cities, combined with
cheap fuel.


Which urban areas? How much cheap land lies with 120 km of
Manhattan Island or the Chicago Loop? Or San Francisco?


Very little. And the only suburban growth is even further out. People
are now commuting to New York from the Scranton (PA) vicinity, where
there still is some cheap(er) land.

I can't see how the lack of mass transit could have more
than a small effect on modern population density. The arrival of mass
transit in the early 20th century actually encouraged the development
of bedroom suburbs.


Mass transit arrived well before the 1920s; there were street
railways by the late 19th century. It was rapid transit, i.e.,
commuter services that arrived in the 1920s. Leading this
movement were the Van Swerigen brothers who bought up the land
they would call Shaker Heights near Cleveland and then built a
rapid transit system connecting Shaker Heights with downtown
Cleveland.


I was trying to refute the statement that the *lack* of mass transit
*caused* population dispersion. Nothing you say contradicts anything I
said;


It wasn't meant to.

indeed much of what you say supports it.


for the most part, it was meant to.

Unless you're just
nitpicking on the details. In that case, let me be more precise: "the
arrival of mass transit to peripheral areas, etc."


You are confounding mass transit with commuter mass transit,
e.g., the U-Bahn with the S-Bahn.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
  #102  
Old August 23rd, 2006, 07:38 PM posted to alt.california,rec.travel.usa-canada
B Vaughan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,871
Default America travel pointers

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:03:04 GMT, Greg Guarino
wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 11:01:13 +0200, B wrote:

On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:10:17 GMT, Greg Guarino
wrote:

My wife and I took two train vacations in Europe, using Eurailpasses
and booking trains as we went along. It was a lot of fun and I
recommend it but there was some variability in the service. In
Switzerland you'd better have your hind quarters on the train by the
posted departure time; they are relentlessly punctual.

In Italy we found quite a bit more um, *elasticity* in the schedule.
We also found a strong entrepreneurial spirit among the porters on the
Italian trains. Liquor and food were stocked in the porter's room and
available for sale. ...


Food is for sale on trains in Italy not because of entrepeneurial
spirit, but because it is a service offered.


This was quite some time ago and maybe things have changed, but the
situation I was describing bore no resemblance to an official service.


It must have been quite some time, as I've been travelling in Italy
for over 10 years, and I've never seen anything.remotely similar.





The porter even showed me his little compartment, with cigarettes,
liquor and sandwiches (possibly made by his wife) nestled in amongst
the other random items stowed on the shelves.

The passengers are
concentrated because it's less work for the staff that way,


The particular trip that comes to mind (although it wasn't the only
one) was an overnight train from Paris to Rome, so I suppose it was
actually an Intercity train, but the staff people we met were Italian.
Many if not most of the couchette compartments were labeled
"Prenotato", but were empty. The few that were labeled "Non-Prenotato"
(not reserved), like our designated compartment, had the full
complement of six passengers. In our case, it was seven, including a
small child on his mother's lap playing with a loud toy.

There was no way to get those six and a half people plus all their
luggage into that compartment, at least as it was configured at the
time. Once they folded out the bunks for the night it might have been
possible to jam it all in. As it was, a young Swedish couple left
their large hiking packs in the corridor. The Italian mother had some
of her prodigious collection of baggage out there too.

I can't remember if the train picked up passengers along the way, it
didn't make many stops. In any case, the train was not nearly full at
any point in the fifteen-hour ride.

and any change in a reserveration after you board the train entails a service
charge.


Unless it was official railway policy to have the passenger and the
porter negotiate amount of the "service charge" in the corridor, to be
paid in cash on the spot, with no receipt or hint of paperwork, I'm
pretty sure that I'm right about the nature of the transaction. On top
of that, there was no "change in reservation" involved. We booked
Couchette berths, he was just moving us to one of the empty Couchette
compartments. And, I might add, guaranteeing us that we'd have that
compartment for six to ourselves.

If you were implying graft, I have travelled extensively on Italian
trains (I live in Italy) and have never seen it.


I don't doubt your experience; I can only accurately report mine. We
managed to get ourselves a less crowded couchette (eventually one
woman joined us) for the trip from Rome to Basel in the same fashion.
I wonder if there might not be more opportunity for this sort of thing
on overnight trains.

My favorite bit of unoffical commerce was when the porter on a
Hungarian train offered us a "l a n g u a g e" sandwich, rolling the
"L" with his tongue stuck out as he said the word. That was a clue to
the proper translation of the sandwich: Tongue. We opted for the
dining car instead. A truly excellent meal, unless you don't like
paprika. There was paprika in the meat, the potatoes and the salad.
None in the drinks, as far as I could tell.


Why do you assume that this service was unofficial? Trains in many
European countries offer food from a rolling cart, or something of the
sort, aside from the dining car.


No cart, no tray, no menu, no display and no other choices. Just a few
obviously homemade sandwiches in saran wrap. Nothing about that
particularly bothered me, by the way. Had the type of sandwich been
more to my taste I might have considered it. It's just as well we
didn't, though. The meal we had instead was very enjoyable. Besides
the excellent food, the decor had a certain elegance to it. There was
even a bit of adventure, ordering from the German language menu
(easier for us to decipher than Hungarian).

Greg Guarino


--
Barbara Vaughan

My email address is my first initial followed by my last name at libero dot it.
  #103  
Old August 24th, 2006, 04:06 PM posted to alt.california,rec.travel.usa-canada
Sarah Banick
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 488
Default America travel pointers



The passengers are
concentrated because it's less work for the staff that way,


The particular trip that comes to mind (although it wasn't the only
one) was an overnight train from Paris to Rome, so I suppose it was
actually an Intercity train, but the staff people we met were Italian.
Many if not most of the couchette compartments were labeled
"Prenotato", but were empty. The few that were labeled "Non-Prenotato"
(not reserved), like our designated compartment, had the full
complement of six passengers. In our case, it was seven, including a
small child on his mother's lap playing with a loud toy.

There was no way to get those six and a half people plus all their
luggage into that compartment, at least as it was configured at the
time. Once they folded out the bunks for the night it might have been
possible to jam it all in. As it was, a young Swedish couple left
their large hiking packs in the corridor. The Italian mother had some
of her prodigious collection of baggage out there too.

I can't remember if the train picked up passengers along the way, it
didn't make many stops. In any case, the train was not nearly full at
any point in the fifteen-hour ride.

and any change in a reserveration after you board the train entails a
service
charge.


Unless it was official railway policy to have the passenger and the
porter negotiate amount of the "service charge" in the corridor, to be
paid in cash on the spot, with no receipt or hint of paperwork, I'm
pretty sure that I'm right about the nature of the transaction. On top
of that, there was no "change in reservation" involved. We booked
Couchette berths, he was just moving us to one of the empty Couchette
compartments. And, I might add, guaranteeing us that we'd have that
compartment for six to ourselves.


I've had the same experience on an overnight Polish train, from Budapest.
All five people in the car in one couchette. The porter specifically wanted
our dollars (this was pre Euro). "Ten dollars for zwei." After we paid, he
took very good care of us the remainder of the trip, and it was worth the
few extra bucks to get a good night's sleep.


 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Airline information on-line on the Internet FAQ John R. Levine Air travel 0 December 4th, 2005 12:00 PM
Airline Ticket Consolidators and Bucket Shops FAQ Edward Hasbrouck Travel Marketplace 0 April 17th, 2004 12:28 PM
Airline Ticket Consolidators and Bucket Shops FAQ Edward Hasbrouck Travel Marketplace 0 March 18th, 2004 10:16 AM
Airline Ticket Consolidators and Bucket Shops FAQ Edward Hasbrouck Travel Marketplace 0 February 16th, 2004 11:03 AM
Airline Ticket Consolidators and Bucket Shops FAQ Edward Hasbrouck Travel Marketplace 0 January 16th, 2004 10:20 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 06:42 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 TravelBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.