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On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 05:07:49 GMT, Josh Halpern
wrote:



Hatunen wrote:

Most passenger rail in the world is only competitive because it
is heavily subsidized by the government in one way or another.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it's doubtful passenger
rail can ever be truly competitive, at least not for the
foreseeable future.

Car and truck traffic is not subsidized?

Are they? How much are they subsidized above and beyond, say,
those "This truck pays $nnnn per year in taxes" that you used to
see on the backs of trucks? How does any subsidy amount per car-
passenger-mile compare to the typical per rail-passenger-mile
subsidy?

In any case, I don't see anything wrong with subsidies in general
where they are for what the public perceives as the public good.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

"Dustin Lambert" wrote in message
m...
"Stan de SD" wrote in message
hlink.net...
"me" wrote in message
om...
(Joey Jolley) wrote in message
. com...
David Nebenzahl wrote in message
[snip]
Nice ideas. I fully endorse many of these ideas.

I also know that most of them will never happen. So let's get
real.

Which ones won't happen
[snip]


Of the top of my head:

1. Not anywhere near total energy production capacity demands.
Personal guess would be about 20% tops, but even double
or triple that would leave a significant portion coming from
fossile fuels.

2. Already exists, only a matter of degree. Probably will
never achieve the kind of performance needed to significantly
impact the larger problem.

3. Already exists.

4. Already exists.

5. Already exists, doesn't attract nearly the majority of residents
needed to have a significant overall impact. Tends to result in
extremely high property prices.

6. Already exists.

7. Already exists. They are regularly abandoned by their inhabitants
and go through regentrification cycles.

8. Unsustainable. That's why the ones that existed disappeared.
People try to rebuild them to varying degrees of success. Ultimately,
not a universal solution to any particular problem.

9. Already exist. People don't use them. Individualized
transportation
has existed virtually since they rode the first horse. Cars didn't
replace buses, street cars, subways, or taxis. They all existed
before cars. They all still exist. Folks want private vehicles.
They will pay to organize their infrastructure around it whether
it is hitchin' posts and horse troughs or parking garages and
gas stations.

10. See #9. Folks want individualized transportation, and access
of it to the places they want to visit. Even in very large towns
where private ownership of vehicles is less common, taxis and limos
do quite well and folks want them to get VERY close to their
destinations.

11. They exist. They are expensive, and slow to respond to
changing demographics. They tend to require very high population
densities. The kind which tend to cause folks to move to lower
densities.

12. Solar power is extremely low density and aircraft that are
directly powered by it are impracticable. It would take potentially
physically impossible efficiency levels to convert the sunlight
on the crafts to keep them airborne, and clouds and darkness
would ground them. VTOL is extremely inefficient mode of flight
and is incompatible with solar power demands of efficiency.

13. Define "big". Large corporations have efficeincies of scale
which are advantageous to research and development.

14. Major decrease in standards of living involved. Any significant
movement in this direction would result in huge decreases in
employment
and truly economic disaster in the transition.

15. Been there, done that. The economics don't work out. It makes
more sense to do what I do well, get a check, and pay the guy that
grows food well to do that for a check. (Economies of scale and all)

16. Happening. Not sure why it matters to you, but it is happening.
Live theater and community viewing will still exist however.

17. Kinda neat. Not sure why you care one way or another. If
you're dead, does it matter if you're full of lead or your
brain fried?

18. Definition of "clean" will be your problem. Copper, steel,
and other relatively naturally occuring materials will get
concentrated
in the oceans. It's just the way the system works.

19. Um.. Gosh, don't even know where to start on this one. How's
'bout
the fact that it wants to enshrine gender discrimination.

20. Calculate the amount of material you're planning on moving
(heck, just the body mass of the people alone) to make any
significant dent in the worlds population. Now calculate the
energy required to launch all that mass into high orbits or
the moon. Now, where does the energy come from? (Hint, it's
a REALLY big number).

21. Self contradictory. Sports do cause aggression, they come
from it. "War games" would be as violent as the games they
replace.

22. Less work, less money, less consumerism, less work, less
money.....

(still trying to figure out when you stopped being anywhere near
serious).

23. Already exists.

24. Trees? Sentient? We're gonna live a lie?

25. Religion by any other name is just a violent.

26. Which "today"? They constantly change. Insisting on only
"natural" fibers will put a heavy demand upon sheep farming. Weren't
we treating them as "sentient" beings? Does this mean we need their
permission to cut off their fur?

27. Done.

28. Done.

29. Why build there at all?

I commend you to going to the trouble of answering. However, given what
a
Kook Joey/Steve is, it's probably a major waste of effort.

The war with Stan starts. **** you, you air-polluting piece of ****!

Thanks for confirming what I suspect of all eco-wacknuts - you all
frustrated little low-IQ totalitarian wanna-bes in little green uniforms.

"Steve Austin" wrote in message
news
I was wrong.

Well, that pretty much sums up everything you have posted here. How about
calling it quits while you are only slightly behind?

"Jym Dyer" wrote in message
...
=v= Interesting demand from Stan de SD, who changed *his*
moniker because he'd besmirched his old one ("Stan Rothwell")
with his constant lies. Of course, he's doing the same with
his current one, so be on the lookout for a third Stan!

No, Jim, and I have never denied who I am - however, I saw no need to
advertise my last name to make it easy for kooks like you, Ric Silver, james
g. keegan, Kent Paul Dolan, and Mike Vandeman to harrass me with phone calls
when you didn't like my posts. I was having trouble with my
Netcom/Mindspring dial up so I switched over to the Earthlink servers
(Earthlink acquired Mindspring which acquired Netcom), which necessitated
changing e-mail addresses. I set up two accounts, a private personal one and
one specifically for Usenet, to keep the wackos from spamming and flooding
my personal e-mail.

Make what you want out of it, Jym, and make your silly claims about me
smearing you as well - you're a known suck-up for eco-terrorist groups,
meaning you're somewhere between Steve Austin and RicSilver on the overall
credibility scale.

Hatunen wrote:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 05:07:49 GMT, Josh Halpern


Hatunen wrote:


Most passenger rail in the world is only competitive because it
is heavily subsidized by the government in one way or another.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it's doubtful passenger
rail can ever be truly competitive, at least not for the
foreseeable future.


Car and truck traffic is not subsidized?



Are they? How much are they subsidized above and beyond, say,
those "This truck pays $nnnn per year in taxes" that you used to
see on the backs of trucks? How does any subsidy amount per car-
passenger-mile compare to the typical per rail-passenger-mile
subsidy?

It is well known that trucks are responsible for much more of the
wear and tear on highways than taxes generated. OTOH, you can do
a quick and dirty, simply by valuing the cost of the real estate
used for roads. (I'll take Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island too.....)

In any case, I don't see anything wrong with subsidies in general
where they are for what the public perceives as the public good.


I'm in full agreement there

josh halpern

On 3/20/2004 1:19 PM Steve Austin spake thus (regarding Berkeley going car-free):

I was wrong.

Thank you for that: it takes a bigger person to admit they were wrong.


--
One person's "terrorist" is another person's "freedom fighter".

- an Uncomfortable Fact

In article ,
on Mon, 22 Mar 2004 02:11:55 GMT,
Josh Halpern writes:


Hatunen wrote:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 05:07:49 GMT, Josh Halpern


Hatunen wrote:


Most passenger rail in the world is only competitive because it
is heavily subsidized by the government in one way or another.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it's doubtful passenger
rail can ever be truly competitive, at least not for the
foreseeable future.


Car and truck traffic is not subsidized?



Are they? How much are they subsidized above and beyond, say,
those "This truck pays $nnnn per year in taxes" that you used to
see on the backs of trucks? How does any subsidy amount per car-
passenger-mile compare to the typical per rail-passenger-mile
subsidy?

It is well known that trucks are responsible for much more of the
wear and tear on highways than taxes generated. OTOH, you can do
a quick and dirty, simply by valuing the cost of the real estate
used for roads. (I'll take Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island too.....)

No, you can't. Roads increase the value of the real estate
they serve. This increase in value generally far outweighs the value
of the real estate used for the road.
James B. Shearer

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 02:11:55 GMT, Josh Halpern
wrote:

Hatunen wrote:

Are they? How much are they subsidized above and beyond, say,
those "This truck pays $nnnn per year in taxes" that you used to
see on the backs of trucks? How does any subsidy amount per car-
passenger-mile compare to the typical per rail-passenger-mile
subsidy?

It is well known that trucks are responsible for much more of the
wear and tear on highways than taxes generated.

Figures, please?

.OTOH, you can do
a quick and dirty, simply by valuing the cost of the real estate
used for roads. (I'll take Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island too.....)

That's not a subsidy, although the loss of rea; estate tax
revenue might be so argued. But then you have to balance that
against the additional tax revenue derived from all the items
being carried on those roads and the increased business in the
service area.

Buy really, this has to do with heavy trucks, not the fuel they
run on. I would certainly assume that large hydrogen fuel cell
trucks will do the same damage.

Remember? This is about subsidies to fossil fuels?

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

Hatunen wrote:

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 09:44:34 -0800, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

On 3/20/2004 9:21 AM Hatunen spake thus:

Most passenger rail in the world is only competitive because it
is heavily subsidized by the government in one way or another.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it's doubtful passenger
rail can ever be truly competitive, at least not for the
foreseeable future.

Agreed. This is certainly the position Amtrak finds itself in (and the
position it's been in since its inception).

The question should more properly be framed "are some things (like passenger
railroads) so inherently beneficial that they should be supported regardless
of unsubsidized profitability?".

That is, of course, a political question for the electorate. Most
major cities adopt this stance with regard to their public
transit systems. A London or New York or San Francisco could not
function as they do without subsidies. In San Francisco, for
example, it is not a question of whether Muni will need tax
money, but rather one of trying desperately to keep the need
within reasonable bounds.

In a recent discussion Earl Elveth commented that when working in Paris
his employer was paying $100/month toward the local transit system for
each employee. I wonder what the current cost per employee that
employers here pay toward their parking. FFM

snip this dickhead's bull****

Stan, I think Mr. Austin is on to something here. I live in Florida.
Close to the Everglades to be exact. If you've seen the abuse that's been
done to this great swamp, I think you'd change your attitude. Just for the
record, I'm not an environmentalist per se but I do have some environmental
concerns.