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

On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 10:48:08 -0600, Doug McDonald
wrote:

wrote:
In the USA driving has become
a daily chore akin to cleaning the toilet or doing the laundry.


Yes, that's true around here.

And it's true ONLY because the left wing politicians
have intentionally made traffic worse with intentionally
mal-placed stop signs, traffic lights, and exceedingly
low speed limits.

Before the left wingers got in charge, we had no serious
traffic problems. Now we do.

That's the WHOLE POINT. The problem was caused by left
wing politicians, not by the natural workings of free people.

When did the left wing take over in C-U? When I left 20 years ago it
seemed like the right-wingers were in charge and traffic was bad.

--
Peter Schleifer
"Save me from the people who would save me from myself"

kkt wrote:
"Stephen Sprunk" writes:

"Traffic calming" is fundamentally flawed. If people are using
neighborhood streets because the arterials have gotten so bad, the
solution is to improve the arterials, not make the alternatives even
worse. Of course, politicians rarely consider ways to improve things;
why make the bad things good when you can, instead, make the good things
bad? It's cheaper, and both result in equality.

Many traffic calming measures are only "worse" from the point of view
of someone who wants to drive 40 mph on a residential street. From
the point of view of people who live along that street or want to walk
or bicycle along that street it's much better not to be sharing it
with speeding cars.

-- Patrick


Hey, I lived on a street like that, both before and after the so called
"traffic calming".

And it was far, far safer to contend with 40 mph traffic than it is now
with infuriated drivers losing control over the speed humps, running the
stop signs because there are SOOOO many, constantly speeding up, slowing
down, etc. Oh, and one of the arterials was narrowed from 4 lanes to 2
(one each direction) a few years later. This was in the People's
Republic of Santa Monica, which, I can assure you is very heavily
Democratic, but it makes little difference. I've seen similar BS in
Orange County.

Lately, the city (in this case, Los Angeles) put speed humps on a street
that was so poorly paved that 25mph was almost not attainable before the
humps. You would think they would spend some of my tax dollars actually
improving traffic flow rather than making it worse!

Regards,

DAve

In article 6%Wxh.34998$Fd.21636@edtnps90, "sharx35"
wrote:

So, who the **** paid for the streets? I strongly doubt that the local
community residents paid for all the streets, sidewalks etc.. Therefore ALL
taxpayers should have FULL access. If ANYONE runs a stop sign, nail em.
Betya that most stop sign runners are locals, though.


There's a device in your car called a steering wheel. This allows you to
make your car go in different directions. You can decide where you want
it to go and where you don't want it to go.

All taxpayers do have full access. Local residents have to drive around
the obstacles just like everyone else does. If you don't like having to
avoid the obstacles on that particular street, STAY OFF THE DAMN STREET.
Find some other DAMN STREET to drive on.

In the part of Portland, Oregon I live the city still hasn't paved some of
the streets. Don't like driving in the mud? THEN STAY OFF THAT DAMN
STREET AND FIND SOME OTHER DAMN STREET TO DRIVE ON.

As far as who pays for the streets, in Portland the sidewalks are
maintained by the local property owner. Up until recent times the city
streets were maintained by the property owner, up to the middle of the
street. Today, the city maintains the roads and the city gets most of its
money from local property taxes. State gas taxes don't even cover the
state and county road needs, and certainly not the city's.

SO AS A MATTER OF FACT I DO OWN THE DAMN STREET AND PAY FOR IT.

--
-Glennl
The despammed service works OK, but unfortunately
now the spammers grab addresses for use as "from" address too!
e-mail hint: add 1 to quantity after gl to get 4317.

wrote:

As far as who pays for the streets, in Portland the sidewalks are
maintained by the local property owner.

Where I live, the city maintains the sidewalks, though technically they
are owned by the property owner (at least in the parts of town with
sidewalks). Local streets are maintained by the city's public works
department. Major arterials are maintained by the county or the state.
This is the basic conflict. The cities don't want their neighborhood
streets being used as an alternative to arterial roads. Encouraging the
traffic passing through the city to not take neighborhood streets helps
encourage the state and the county to provide sufficient arterial streets.

I don't know how traffic-calming turned into a left-wing thing, since it
really is not political at all, the desire for traffic calming by local
residents transcends politics. The neighborhood residents that don't
want commuters speeding through their narrow streets could be left,
middle, or center.

Where politics does play a part is in how the right wing, since Reagan,
has been defunding public works projects, both roads and mass transit.
Defund mass transit in areas where it is practical, and you crowd the
roads. Defund roads, and you create congestion. They never are willing
to look at the big picture and understand that a balance is needed, and
that they'll never be able to build enough roads to meet the demands of
an increasing population. The fact that they'd rather spend trillions of
dollars attacking countries that don't a threat to us, helps ensure that
there is never any money left for infrastructure in the U.S..

Peter Schleifer wrote:

When did the left wing take over in C-U? When I left 20 years ago it
seemed like the right-wingers were in charge and traffic was bad.


In the last 15 years. The traffic problems of 20 years ago
(i.e. anti-synchronized traffic lights on University and
Springfield, and the non-existance of Windsor from Neil
(oops ... Dunlap) to Lincoln ) are fixed. Because of this,
the left-wingers had to CREATE more problems ... like
25 mph speed limits all over campus (the University
tried to go to 20, but the frats convinced Champaign to say NO MORE)
all 4-way stop signs at every corner on Goodwin, and closing
Gregory south of the library to traffic except busses.
This latter was the big disaster.


Doug McDonald

"David Nebenzahl" wrote:

My own preference would be tire spikes.

Caltrops.

Then there's motorized bollards. Maybe they could be self-funded by selling
advertising on all the YouTube videos that could be made of schlubs getting
stuck on them:

http://berkeleypublictransit.blogspo...-bollards.html

Scott Mace

Scott Mace wrote:
"David Nebenzahl" wrote:

My own preference would be tire spikes.
Caltrops.

Then there's motorized bollards. Maybe they could be self-funded by selling
advertising on all the YouTube videos that could be made of schlubs getting
stuck on them:

http://berkeleypublictransit.blogspo...-bollards.html

Scott Mace

The video is at "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEbmJi3ROKk&eurl="

In my city, one of the sheriff's deputies didn't wait for a traffic gate
to go up, and plowed right through it.

One friend of mine was looking for non-lethal methods of eliminating
speeding on her street, but we couldn't come up with any workable ideas.

Sometimes when I walk my kid to school, I carry along my digital SLR and
take pictures of the drivers running stop signs, not stopping in
crosswalks, etc. It often really freaks them out. See
"http://nordicgroup.us/dtshos/"

"Stephen Sprunk" wrote in message
.. .
"Don Freeman" wrote in message
...
"Stephen Sprunk" wrote in message
.. .
"SMS" wrote in message
...
DaveW wrote:
But of course, the vehicles were using the residential streets in
the first place because the arterials were congested. So, what
do you get? Even more congestion on the arterials!

For a time. The arterials are usually under the control of the county
or state,

That totally depends on where you are and what kinds of roads you're
talking about. Highways and freeways are almost entirely state- or
turnpike authority-funded. Some states also build major surface roads,
where others leave that entirely to the county or city.

It is safe to assume that he was talking about California (since this
is ba.transportation) and California does maintain some major surface
streets.

If you're going to cross-post to national and world-wide newsgroups, then
you need to specify if you only want responses relating to a particular
city so the rest of us can ignore you.


You are right, I had neglected to notice that it was being x-posted out of
the group I was reading. (I wish this reader did automatic newsgroup
trimming).

Sorry,
Don.

SMS wrote:

One friend of mine was looking for non-lethal methods of eliminating
speeding on her street, but we couldn't come up with any workable ideas.

Sometimes when I walk my kid to school, I carry along my digital SLR and
take pictures of the drivers running stop signs, not stopping in
crosswalks, etc. It often really freaks them out. See
"http://nordicgroup.us/dtshos/"

Human beings, at least most of them, as well as most dogs,
are capable of learning. Protection from cars is simply taught.
The key is simple, based on the law of inertia:

"Cars can't change speed instantly. If no car is coming, at a speed that
will reach you before you cross the street ... and please worry about slipping
on the ice or a banana peel ... it can't hurt you. LOOK all
directions ... not just ones that have green lights. LOOK twice.
If no car is coming close enough to hit you, proceed. If you can't find a
time when no cars are coming, like at a stop light, at least don't start
until all cars are stopped. LOOK ALL DIRECTIONS."

That's all there is to it.

"Pedestrian safety is the responsibility of the pedestrian!
Cars are bigger than you ... YOU must watch out for yourself."

Doug McDonald

Doug McDonald wrote:

"Pedestrian safety is the responsibility of the pedestrian!
Cars are bigger than you ... YOU must watch out for yourself."

It still warms my heart when the motorcycle cops give out those $300
tickets for failing to yield to pedestrians. Mostly it's around schools,
but occasionally they have a campaign that extends across the whole region.