LA Times: U.S. Love Affair With The Car Ending

On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 13:36:12 -0800, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

Doug McDonald spake thus:

Scott en Aztlán wrote:

And who put a gun to their heads and forced them to buy a house that's
so far away from school, activities, and everything else that the kids
need to be driven EVERYWHERE?

The left-wingers who invented FORCED SCHOOL BUSING, that's who.

People had to move farther than bus range away from people they
didn't want their kids going to school with.

Ah, so the latent segregationist in you is poking its ugly head out for
everyone to see. Good going.

The result of the busing was mixed at best and probably did little to
eliminate segregation. It also seemed to be imposed by an elite who
sent their children to private schools. The magnet school plan
imposed in Kansas City seemed like a better idea but again did little.
I suspect that part of the problem was the change in how we treated
certain behaviors like allowing graffiti where it wasn't before. The
unequal handling of infractions went both ways and while sentencing
studies have shown that black people have gotten stiffer sentences
than whites for the same crime (and Indians really down low on the
scale), there was overlooking or calls to overlook certain things
based on race.

That's the bottom line.

Yes, it is a pretty bottom line at that.

Free Lunch wrote:
On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 17:58:33 -0500, in misc.transport.urban-transit
Bolwerk wrote in
:
Doug McDonald wrote:
Bolwerk wrote:
Doug McDonald wrote:
Many young people in the US do not understand
how much better things could be if we had continued on as we were
in the 50 and 60s.
McCarthyism, segregation, back alley abortions, and mutually assured
destruction? Par-tay, man!
No, I am referring to freedom. Something people in Europe
don't even have the concept of.
That hardly seems fair. Europe is a huge geographic and cultural area,
and much of it is far less authoritarian than the U.S.

Will they take me back? It was only my great-grandparents who left.

Depends on the country. My understanding is the Irish and Italians take
grandchildren back. I don't know who takes great-grandchildren back.

On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 18:24:03 -0500, in misc.transport.urban-transit
Bolwerk wrote in
:
Free Lunch wrote:
On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 17:58:33 -0500, in misc.transport.urban-transit
Bolwerk wrote in
:
Doug McDonald wrote:
Bolwerk wrote:
Doug McDonald wrote:
Many young people in the US do not understand
how much better things could be if we had continued on as we were
in the 50 and 60s.
McCarthyism, segregation, back alley abortions, and mutually assured
destruction? Par-tay, man!
No, I am referring to freedom. Something people in Europe
don't even have the concept of.
That hardly seems fair. Europe is a huge geographic and cultural area,
and much of it is far less authoritarian than the U.S.

Will they take me back? It was only my great-grandparents who left.

Depends on the country. My understanding is the Irish and Italians take
grandchildren back. I don't know who takes great-grandchildren back.

My ancestors would have used a port on the Baltic Sea to get to America.
I guess I'll just have to work to straighten out the idiocy here, then.

SMS wrote:
Bolwerk wrote:

The ironic thing is that sometimes SUVs really don't provide that much
in the way of additional passenger space anyway.

Depends. The Honda Pilot seats eight, and most minivans seat eight. It's
not just for transporting your own kids, it's the softball team, soccer
team, etc. It's probably better to have three minivans or SUVs than
seven or eight compact cars. It's also about transporting other family
members, i.e. grandparents.

That's why it would be most fuel-efficient to be able to have a small
car for commuting, and keep the larger vehicle for use only when
necessary. I do that by bicycling to work when possible, but sometimes I
need a vehicle during the day.

It would be *more* fuel efficient to arrange lifestyles so that you can
walk to do at least some things.

Bolwerk wrote:


Is the state's power to take my tax dollars and put them towards roads
in the first place a form of "freedom" too?

This is in fact a specific task for the Federal government,
in the constitution. It is truly and correctly recognized
as a proper use of taxes.


Or how about the measures
many different levels of government take to require that everybody drive

You show your serious lack of reason. Government in no
way requires or even suggests that everybody drive.

Doug McDonald

On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 11:42:59 -0800, Scott en Aztlán
wrote:

RJ said in misc.transport.urban-transit:

On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 07:14:42 -0800, Scott en Aztlán
wrote:

SMS said in misc.transport.urban-transit:

Actually what needs to be done is to find ways to encourage people to
leave the SUV or mini-van at home, and use a smaller vehicle for
commuting, and use the larger vehicle only when necessary.

Or, better still, use public transit for commuting, and *rent* the SUV
when you actually need one.

The major rental companies will not let you take even a 4x4 SUV off
paved roads. So if that's what you want an SUV to do, you have a
problem

Give me a break. The only time the vast majority of SUVs go off-road
is when they are parked in the driveway.

You are confused between the average use of the SUV versus my use of
the SUV.

SMS spake thus:

David Nebenzahl wrote:

Doug McDonald spake thus:

SMS wrote:

There is no 55 MPH speed limit anymore in the U.S..

You are utterly wrong. It's still 55 mph in Illinois on non
freeways.

He/she meant there's no *overall* 55 limit as there used to be, and I
think you knew that.

Duh.

There is no national limit anymore. States can do as they please. There
are lots of non-freeway roads in California with 65 MPH limits.

Well, shoot, for that matter, there are stretches of freeway right here
in the Bay Area with 55 speed limits: 880 in downtown Oakland and 101 in
San Francisco, to name just two.

Of course, nobody pays any attention to these. (I do, though. **** 'em
if they can't read.)


--
Don't talk to me, those of you who must need to be slammed in the
forehead with a maul before you'll GET IT that Wikipedia is a
time-wasting, totality of CRAP...don't talk to me, don't keep bleating
like naifs, that we should somehow waste MORE of our lives writing a
variorum text that would be put up on that site.

It is a WASTE OF TIME.

- Harlan Ellison, writing on the "talk page" of his Wikipedia article
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Harlan_Ellison)

Doug McDonald wrote:
Bolwerk wrote:


Is the state's power to take my tax dollars and put them towards roads
in the first place a form of "freedom" too?

This is in fact a specific task for the Federal government,
in the constitution. It is truly and correctly recognized
as a proper use of taxes.

Would you care to explain how the appearance of something in the
constitution automatically categorizes it as a form of "freedom"?

Or how about the measures many different levels of government take to
require that everybody drive

Time for Doug to slip the ad hominem in!

You show your serious lack of reason. Government in no
way requires or even suggests that everybody drive.

The *federal* government went well out of its way to encourage
automobile-centric living in the latter half of the 20th century, and
continues to today with provisions of the tax code (I can't write off my
apartment like I could a mortgage on a house, for instance) and with
appropriations (non-car-centric places frequently get less support from
the federal government).

It's obviously very much a cultural phenomenon too, but state and local
governments frequently restrict zoning commercial and industrial space
near residential space, so you often have to drive to get between the
three. And nevermind the absurdity of driving to meet your basic needs.

Simply put, it is a matter of policy that it's difficult if not
impossible to live without a car in the majority of the U.S.

James Silverton wrote:

Hello, kkt!
You wrote on 03 Feb 2007 11:19:19 -0800:

?? No seat belt or child seat laws. That is, we were freer.

k If you want to endanger yourself, be my guest as far as I'm
k concerned. But don't endanger your child.

I fully agree with regard to kids but I think drivers who don't want to
use seatbelts or motor-cyclists helmets should be allowed to do so if
they execute a signed document binding themselves not to sue for
consequent injuries.

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

No, the document should also include approval to provide parts for
transplant in case of a fatal accident.

David Nebenzahl wrote:

There is no national limit anymore. States can do as they please.
There are lots of non-freeway roads in California with 65 MPH limits.

Well, shoot, for that matter, there are stretches of freeway right here
in the Bay Area with 55 speed limits: 880 in downtown Oakland and 101 in
San Francisco, to name just two.

I thought that that section of 101 was 50, not 55. In any case, setting
the speed limits to appropriate speeds makes the most sense, and that's
what they're doing. The minuscule fuel savings of 55 MPH isn't worth it.

I read an article once that said that the 55 MPH speed limit was
actually causing people to neglect their vehicle's maintenance, with the
claim being that even an unmaintained vehicle, that was out of
alignment, and had out of balance wheels, and under-inflated tires,
could be driven at 55-60 MPH, but that driving at 65-80 MPH required
that the car be in better mechanical condition.