I am Mad as Hell #1 [America is Unraveling / Transportation rant]

“This is not a psychotic breakdown; it’s a cleansing moment of clarity.”

Don’t thank me; Paddy Chayefsky is the man with the golden pen in this case. (He also wrote the film adaptation of Paint Your Wagon which has to be one of the most bizarre film musicals ever.)

As for the o.p.: you’d need to have effective mass transit in major cities to begin with. Most cities lack an infrastructure or the population density to provide mass transit capability. Even those that do would be pushed way past the breaking point if drivers all started using rail and trolley transit. The San Francisco Municipal Area has what is inarguably the most dense and accessible (if somewhat confusing) metro mass transit system on the West Coast, and yet there are plenty of cars on the streets despite the fact that it takes someone who is both irredeemably patient and suicidally insane to drive in that city. Ditto for Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City. And regardless of any shift from personal vehicles to mass transportation, it won’t result in “one bold stroke the oil, mideast, and global warming crisis’ are solved.”

But please, feel free to rant on without irony or appreciation of the nuances of those problems.

Stranger

focusonz, welcome to the boards. Please be sure to use descriptive thread titles for your posts. Being “mad as hell” is pretty common for the Pit. I’ve modified your title accordingly - if you have a different title in mind, please let me know.

But Patton rode a tank to work.

Wastrel! You have any idea how many gallons to the mile those things get?

Detroit area has no mass transportation. we once had electric streetcars. Now we have buses that run some where some times. No car,you go no where. It is wasteful and stupid. Setting up a subway system would be expensive now but the plans were drawn 60 years ago.
The sooner the better.

I’ll bet you a dollar that the plans drawn 60 years ago no longer connect where people live with where people work.

In the midst of this superbly cunning plan, focusonz, have you determined what to do with salespeople, contractors, and the elevendy-seven other vocations which can’t take mass transit to their point of employ?

'Scuze me, Mr. Bus Driver, howsabout you pull over at the lumber yard up there. You folks in the first three rows need to move back, I’m putting a half dozen replacement windows in your seats. I’ll only be a little while, mmkay?

World opinion and respect actually peaked because of our extravagant use of the automobile and other symbols of personal wealth and power. It’s the blowing stuff up we do all over the place that is costing us.

I agree most people in American cities won’t need cars for long, as most jobs will be outsourced to India and Malaysia.

We do need 16 lane empty highways leading into the cities, because they make INCREDIBLE scenery for post-apocalyptic movies, which will be the only industry in which America will maintain a lead.

I for one, have had sterilization surgery and never had kids. Therefor I can shit all over the landscape and use gas-powered toasters because by not having offspring, I’ve already saved more resources for the planet than 98% of everyone else, no matter what I do.

Oh believe me, I recognized it within half a dozen words. It’s my favorite movie, bar none. I’ve watched it probably twice a year for as long as I’ve had a VCR and/or DVD player.

No, now I’m just pissed that the other thread, with easily my best post in weeks, got locked, and this one remains open. Balls on a stick, man.

So, when is “I am Mad as Hell (Yellow)” coming out?

focusonz: Montana refutes you utterly and leaves you gibbering in the cold wind.

FYI
St Louis has Metrolink.

Conclusion:

A metrolink system could be built to service commuters in STL at a cost equal to 1.5 years of fuel usage. This would save the commuters about $4.5 billion annually (ignoring maintainence cost) at $3 per gallon and 1.1 billion gallons or 25 million barrels of oil per year of fuel.

If extrapolated to all metro areas (100) in the US What would be the effects
With less wear and tear POV’s will last longer and be in less demand
But their will be huge offsetting demand for new metrolink cars
Fuel prices will plunge due to our great reduction in fuel usage
a 450 billion public works project will employ teaming millions
The US trade deficit will vanish due to $450 billion annual fuel savings
The speed limit on Metro area highway systems could be eliminated.

Calculations:
Metrolink project construction has cost $1.2 billion since 1993.
metrolink daily ridership is 68,000 passengers on 48 miles of track
metrolink cost $1.2B/48=$25M per mile
Ridership is 68000/48=1416 riders per mile per day
Rolling stock consists of 87 cars with 72 seated passengers and 106 standing passengers
rolling stock of 87/48= 1.8 cars per mile

The state of Missouri collects taxes on 4.5 billion gallons of fuel a year
@ $.17 per gallon the total tax revenue is $700 million per year
@ 3 per gallon less .36 total tax the total cost of fuel is 4.5B*(3-.36)=$12 billion

assumptions
commuter required by law to ride expanded Metrolink
½ total fuel cost is gas for diesel trucks
½ remainder are commuter fuel costs in major metros STL, KC
assume KC and STL mass transit projects are similar in scope
Applying fuel savings In one year of $3B
Applying fuel taxes $1.4B (Mo keeps the fed tax for this project)
A metrolink expansion yearly project budget of $4.4B is reasonable.
Amounting to $4.4B/$25M= 176 miles of new metrolink track per year and 319 new cars

The metrolink expansion would utilize the major commuting corridors
In STL these are I270, I70, I55, I170, HW40, I44 which total about 150 miles
and feeders from O’fallon, chesterfield Valley Park, and Festus total about 80 Miles
a total of 230 miles of track is required or about 1.5 years payback on fuel savings.
Including KC then a 3 year payback is projected

NOW THE FINAL MILE.
POV’s are used by the commuter to get to/from door step and metrolink station.
Businesses will required by law to provide shuttle service to/from nearest metrolink station
So that commuters are not inconvenienced POV’s will be allowed to be used on assigned days.
The law will require all POV’s to have an electronic tag system so compliance can be enforced.
The law requires collection of ride tickets by POV on per mile basis within metrolink service area.
The electronic tag fee collection software coding looks like
if your work place (cubical) is within the metrolink service area
then your commuting privileges are regulated and all your POV’s require tags

if your POV is within metrolink service area
if the time is between 6AM and 10AM or 4PM and 6PM M-F
if day is not POV assigned day
if your POV is greater than 5 miles from metorlink station
then charge is $1 per mile for commuting

total STL metrolink would consist of 280 miles of track 406 cars
having 29000 seated passengers and 43000 standing passengers totaling 72000 passengers

double check 230 miles of 6 lane highway with 4 car length (80ft)separation
the highway systems has capacity of 23052806/80=91000 passengers

focus on z

I take exception to this. I’ve driven in all those cities, but especially Boston, and driving in and around Boston is NOT a pain, if you time it right. I could breeze into Boston/Cambridge on an ordinary workday, if I go early enough.

The problem with Boston is that it (intentionally) hasn’t got anywhere nrear enough parking spaces, and the ones that are there are ludicrously expensive. The problem with commuting (and this isn’t limited to Boston) is that there isn’t enough parking near the transit stations to make it workable for more people.

Do your civic duty and fix the problem whether it is real or perceived.

For every commuter that cosumes less fuel puts money in his pocket directly.
and indirectly we all save money because the interest on the national debt is less and we have lowered infrastructure maintainence costs.

Don’t elevate the problem for solution to the national level and to a bunch of ninnies who have obviously risen to and exceeded their level of incompetence.

I appreciate your insight so let us system engineer the problem! The plan targets specifically the millions of people who take their cars between their door steps and their cubical, work station, and office (commuters) and not other classes of drivers and vehical use.

How is it Cal’s duty to fix a problem that isn’t real?

While your plan has some interesting qualities, I don’t know how many cities it’s appropriate for, and I’m not sure what the source for the hundreds of billions in required funding would be. And oh yes, I don’t think the government should be able to levy such intrusive taxes on driving. If that’s your best hope for cutting fuel usage, it’s never going to happen.

What about the PeopleMover, huh?

oh, right, mass transit. nm

Like Allegheny County (Pittsburgh, PA) where Dan Onorato created a whole new tax and added it to rental cars and drinks (10% for every “poured drink” that contains alcohol) so that they can, once again, bail out a failing Port Authority that sucks balls and is only used by those who have to use it, while the top brass of the PaT still rakes in six figures a year…

For sentences every post lacks.
and making no sense you are.

Yes, that sounds like a nice quiet relaxing commute for all concerned. All the current clicking, jabbering and earphone leakage multipled many times over, assuming one can locate and operate all those devices while jammed in like sardines. :dubious:

You need to move to Roosha, boy.

Real problems are solved By the people of the people and for the people!
Perceptions arise from wrong thinking and needs to fixed as well.
Especially in this political cycle which is based on the politics of fear.

It is appropriate for every city which has a 6 or more lane beltway and 4 or more lane radial highways emanating from the metro center. The source of the initial funding is the tax on fuel earmarked for highway upgrades and maintenance amounting to $1.4 billion in Missouri alone foregoing highway projects being made unnecessary.

Also I suggest that we citizens fund the project with $38 billion in tax rebates.

Then we collect tolls from all citizens using the metro highways and/or quadruple the fuel taxes.

In Missouri this would add $1.44 to every gallon of gas until the project is paid for including construction and ten year operation costs so metrolink ridership is free for ten years. $1.444.5B gallons1 year=$6.48B enough to pay for STL and KC metrolink expansion and operation in one year.

This does bring to mind that UPS & FEDEX & DHL would help fund and use the transit system to carry packages to distribution centers within the metro area and save costs and fuel and time in process as they work daily and on a regular schedule.

Every commuter would get noise canceling head phones once every 12 months for free.

Design the system so every rider gets 1st class seat, rides for free in first 10 years of operation, and for St Louis Missouri alone we won’t pay $3 billion a year for fuel.

focus on Z