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

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"Doug McDonald" wrote in message
...

The 50s were FAR freer in the US than now. Really. I was living then.

For example, political correctness had not been invented, so we
still had true freedom of speech.

I was living then too. And I say you're full of it.

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"Scott en Aztlán" wrote in message
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"Jamie Brinkoeter" said in
misc.transport.urban-transit:

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

You have to live somewhere that actually *has* public transit to use it.

It's a free country. You can live anywhere you choose.

And if good transit systems existed, YOU -know- that more people would chose
to live where they could use them.

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"Scott en Aztlán" wrote in message
...
"sharx35" said in misc.transport.urban-transit:

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

That doesn't really work. Families often need the larger vehicle every
weekend, and several times during the week. Where they don't need it,
is
in everyday commuting. The SUV or minivan has become the defacto
replacement for the large station wagons of the past. At least they get
better mileage.

So, who put a gun to their heads and forced them to have that many
children
that they NEED a SUV? 2 or 3 children can EASILY be transported in the
back
seat of even a medium-sized car.

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 gun is economic and it's wielded by the banks and finance companies.

Scott en Aztlán wrote:

Carpool lanes (as implemented in SoCal) have always been of limited
utility. Because you can only legally enter or exit the carpool lane
at designated (and widely-separated) areas, if you use the carpool
lane you inevitably end up stuck behind some Sloth who is driving 55
MPH. The only difference nowadays is that the Sloth is driving a Prius
and is attempting to maximize his instantaneous fuel economy (as
displayed on the pretty little LCD screen on his dashboard).

In today's San Jose paper, they mentioned that there are no more carpool
stickers to be issued for hybrids. Originally it was capped at 75,000,
and CalTrans didn't want to raise the amount due to carpool lanes
becoming clogged. However the legislature allowed another 10,000
stickers to be issued.

For those that hate the whole idea of carpool lanes, the program has
been successful, because the effect has been to get more cars out of the
non-carpool lanes into the carpool lanes, equalizing the load. Every
hybrid in the carpool lane, means one less car in the other lanes.

The big losers in the program have been the real carpoolers, who no
longer have a lane that is significantly faster than the other lanes.
The sticker program ends in 2010, and may not be renewed.

"http://origin.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_5150819"

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.

SMS wrote:
Bolwerk wrote:

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

Well yes, that's exactly what I did. I bought a house close-in, rather
than out in the new suburbs where you get more house for the money, but
have to drive everywhere. I can walk to about 60 restaurants within 20
minutes, and walk to two supermarkets, three drug stores, Target, Home
Depot, a decaying mall, etc. The kids can walk to school.

Feel free not to answer (I'm really just curious, based on your
description), but where do you live?

Still, it's the after-school activities, softball, soccer, baseball,
climbing, etc., that require driving, and that require trading off on
carpools. The difference between now and the 60's is that there was far
less after school stuff, and the stay at home mom, could be a personal
chauffeur for the kids.

Yeah, I understand all that. FYI, I don't consider all driving, or all
automobile use, unreasonable.

The problem with the automobile is that we've let the right wing oil
companies and politicians define the whole economic structure of
personal transportation, for their own economic benefit. We could learn
a lot from other countries, which also have a history of private
automobile use, but have regulated it in a way that benefits the country
as a whole, rather than a small number of corporations. Ironically, the
politicians that scream the loudest about personal freedom are the ones
whose policies will end up taking it away.

I've never really looked into it all that much, but I can easily see
three groups that benefit based on current transportation policy: oil
companies, car manufacturers, and local developers. The last of the
three probably falls most under the radar, but it perhaps even the most
destructive since they're the ones who produce all these cheap, poorly
constructed suburbs. As a side point, I wonder how much power they have
over local county supervisors much of the time.

(Some of those "cheap, poorly constructed suburbs" seem to be facing
many problems that traditionally were regarded as urban, such as youth
gangs and blight.)

It seems like the U.S. population is just beginning to wake up to the
tremendous economic harm that the oil companies and the car makers that
profit by selling fuel inefficient vehicles have foisted on them, with
the help of complacent right wing politicians.

It's going to take several decades of Democratic rule to reverse the
policies and harm done to the U.S. by Reagan, Bush, and Bush.

It's not like Democrats weren't behind some of this too. Even
"reformists" like Robert Moses were most likely Democrats. Actually,
nationally the highway-centric transportation and the decline of the
railroad was probably pushed mainly by a combination of liberal
Republicans and conservative Democrats. In the northeast anyway, I
guess urban Democratic machines turned against the local street car
franchises (and, in New York City anyway, the subway franchises).

Democrats certainly never reversed Eisenhower-era policies favoring
highways ad nauseum in the decades following the 1950s.

Bolwerk wrote:

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

Well yes, that's exactly what I did. I bought a house close-in, rather
than out in the new suburbs where you get more house for the money, but
have to drive everywhere. I can walk to about 60 restaurants within 20
minutes, and walk to two supermarkets, three drug stores, Target, Home
Depot, a decaying mall, etc. The kids can walk to school.

Still, it's the after-school activities, softball, soccer, baseball,
climbing, etc., that require driving, and that require trading off on
carpools. The difference between now and the 60's is that there was far
less after school stuff, and the stay at home mom, could be a personal
chauffeur for the kids.

The problem with the automobile is that we've let the right wing oil
companies and politicians define the whole economic structure of
personal transportation, for their own economic benefit. We could learn
a lot from other countries, which also have a history of private
automobile use, but have regulated it in a way that benefits the country
as a whole, rather than a small number of corporations. Ironically, the
politicians that scream the loudest about personal freedom are the ones
whose policies will end up taking it away.

It seems like the U.S. population is just beginning to wake up to the
tremendous economic harm that the oil companies and the car makers that
profit by selling fuel inefficient vehicles have foisted on them, with
the help of complacent right wing politicians.

It's going to take several decades of Democratic rule to reverse the
policies and harm done to the U.S. by Reagan, Bush, and Bush.

"Scott en Aztlán" wrote in message
...
"Jamie Brinkoeter" said in
misc.transport.urban-transit:

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

You have to live somewhere that actually *has* public transit to use it.

It's a free country. You can live anywhere you choose.

Not everyone lives, or wants to live, on the east or west coast. Should we
all decide where to live based on whether they have public transit? Boy,
that would wreak some havoc on the populations of major metropolitan areas.
I live in a smallish town about 30 miles from Austin, Texas. A lot of people
who live here (and in other towns surrounding Austin) work in Austin. We
certainly choose to live here and I, for one, wouldn't give up the Texas
Hill Country for the pleasure of riding a bus or train to work. I'm sure
that feeling exists in many, many places. Would it be nice to have public
transit available? Sure. Would enough people use it to make it economically
feasible? Probably not.

"Scott en Aztlán" wrote in message
...
"sharx35" said in misc.transport.urban-transit:

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

That doesn't really work. Families often need the larger vehicle every
weekend, and several times during the week. Where they don't need it, is
in everyday commuting. The SUV or minivan has become the defacto
replacement for the large station wagons of the past. At least they get
better mileage.

So, who put a gun to their heads and forced them to have that many
children
that they NEED a SUV? 2 or 3 children can EASILY be transported in the
back
seat of even a medium-sized car.

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?


I thankfully don't have kids in school any more, but are you suggesting that
children be allowed to ride public transportation alone?

"Bolwerk" wrote in message
...
SMS wrote:
Bolwerk wrote:

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

Well yes, that's exactly what I did. I bought a house close-in, rather
than out in the new suburbs where you get more house for the money, but
have to drive everywhere. I can walk to about 60 restaurants within 20
minutes, and walk to two supermarkets, three drug stores, Target, Home
Depot, a decaying mall, etc. The kids can walk to school.

Feel free not to answer (I'm really just curious, based on your
description), but where do you live?

Still, it's the after-school activities, softball, soccer, baseball,
climbing, etc., that require driving, and that require trading off on
carpools. The difference between now and the 60's is that there was far
less after school stuff, and the stay at home mom, could be a personal
chauffeur for the kids.

Yeah, I understand all that. FYI, I don't consider all driving, or all
automobile use, unreasonable.

The problem with the automobile is that we've let the right wing oil
companies and politicians define the whole economic structure of personal
transportation, for their own economic benefit. We could learn a lot from
other countries, which also have a history of private automobile use, but
have regulated it in a way that benefits the country as a whole, rather
than a small number of corporations. Ironically, the politicians that
scream the loudest about personal freedom are the ones whose policies
will end up taking it away.



You refeer to countries in Europe who control a lot of driving via high cost
of fuel, high cost of license, and the public transit is because you have a
very high density of people in a small area. I doubt you realise how
compact most of Europe is.