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

[QUOTE=catsix]
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…
.
[/QUOTE]

Are you mad as hell yet?
Anger is an energy so put it to good use and yank their chains!

focus on z

[QUOTE=focusonz]
Are you mad as hell yet?
Anger is an energy so put it to good use and yank their chains!
[/QUOTE]

You know she’s saying your plan wouldn’t work, right?

Bah,

Telecomute. Sure, just like mass transit, it won’t work for everyone. But it would be a simple solution for many, many people.

[QUOTE=focusonz]

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.
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So you want a system of public transit that will be used by the entire population of St. Louis, none of whom will pay anything for the first ten years of service, and you see this as somehow economically viable?

[QUOTE=Great Dave]
What about the PeopleMover, huh?

oh, right, mass transit. nm
[/QUOTE]

Market it with passion!
Emblazon the cars with the slogan “We the People” or
“The Commuter Conection” or how about
“My other car is an RV”

[QUOTE=focusonz]
Market it with passion!
Emblazon the cars with the slogan “We the People” or
“The Commuter Conection” or how about
“My other car is an RV”
[/QUOTE]

consider yourself whooshed.

the PeopleMover is mass transit like Ricky’s train on Silver Spoons is mass transit.

Well, sir, there’s nothing on earth
Like a genuine,
Bona fide,
Electrified,
Six-car
Monorail!
What’d I say?
Monorail!

[QUOTE=focusonz]
Market it with passion!
[/QUOTE]
What, so, everybody gets to ride for free for the first ten years, and they get blowjobs?

I might be able to get behind that.

Seriously, are you from North Korea? Cause you sound an awful lot like one of Kim Jong-Il’s crazy campaign slogans. There are some people who need to be put back in the cage.

[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
So you want a system of public transit that will be used by the entire population of St. Louis, none of whom will pay anything for the first ten years of service, and you see this as somehow economically viable?
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I don’t think that reality is his strong point. Nor, clearly, is irony. He has, however, offered the perfect opportunity to quote from Network:You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it. Is that clear? You think you’ve merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars.

Thank you, focusonz, for your meaningless prattle, your unintentional self-parody, your feeblemindedly simplistic outlook, your superficial and toothless solutions, and the general zany, ungrammatical nonsense prose of the entire rant. God bless you, Mr. Rosewater.

Stranger

[QUOTE=focusonz]
All us city dwellers should be denied the privilege to commute to work in cars and be forced to use mass transit.
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You have to build it first. Not every American, even in a city, lives near a mass-transit stop.

[QUOTE=focusonz]
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 maintenance costs.
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I just couldn’t let this little gem pass without comment. I just spent some time on the Los Angeles MTA page figuring out my commute if I were to take public transport. I would have to take 3 different trains, a bus, and walk about a mile (or take another bus). It would take me over 2 hours and 15 minutes to get from my house to my job. My current driving time is about 45 minutes to an hour.

Also, since you are in favor of ignoring maintenance,* I’m going to ignore all costs associated with driving my car except for gas. It would cost me more to take public transport every day than I spend on gas for my little Corolla that gets around 33 mpg. So public transport would not ‘put money in my pocket directly.’

Oh, and by the way, what’s powering all this public transport?

Bolding mine

[QUOTE=Cervaise]
What, so, everybody gets to ride for free for the first ten years, and they get blowjobs?

I might be able to get behind that.
[/QUOTE]

I was thinking that I could stretch out, listen to some vibes, and get an early start on the evening drinking.

[QUOTE=focusonz]
I was thinking that I could stretch out, listen to some vibes, and get an early start on the evening drinking.
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Dude, this free for ten years public transport is going to have 1st class seats, free noise reduction headphones, piped in vibraphone music (if that’s what you mean by listening to some vibes), and allow drinking? Shit, I’ll sell my house and just live on the train.

So, let’s assume that Pittsburgh is kind of like St. Louis and that gas costs (today) $3.30/gallon. You want to raise the price of gas to $4.74/gallon in order to pay for your mass transportation scheme which will only work in the metro area.

I commute sixty miles a day, round trip. I live and work outside the metro area, and none of my commute goes through the metro area. I use 13 gallons of gas every six days. I do very little driving that is not work related, probably less than 100 miles per week. That means I fill up 5 times a month and spend about $42.90 on each fill-up, or $214.50 per month, on gasoline. Raise the price by $1.44 per gallon and my gasoline costs, per month, go up to $308.10. Where am I supposed to come up with the $93.60 per month that it would cost me so that people in a city I neither live nor work in can take the bus, have noise canceling head phones, and sit in first class seats for free?

Your scheme won’t work. The Onorato tax doesn’t work. Those of us who can leave Allegheny County and spend our money at bars where a pint is fifty cents cheaper will do so. PaT is not bailed out, and the owners of the small local bars suffer.

That is the kind of anger people like you create.

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
You have to build it first. Not every American, even in a city, lives near a mass-transit stop.
[/QUOTE]

see post #31

[QUOTE=catsix]
So, let’s assume that Pittsburgh is kind of like St. Louis and that gas costs (today) $3.30/gallon. You want to raise the price of gas to $4.74/gallon in order to pay for your mass transportation scheme which will only work in the metro area.

I commute sixty miles a day, round trip. I live and work outside the metro area, and none of my commute goes through the metro area. I use 13 gallons of gas every six days. I do very little driving that is not work related, probably less than 100 miles per week. That means I fill up 5 times a month and spend about $42.90 on each fill-up, or $214.50 per month, on gasoline. Raise the price by $1.44 per gallon and my gasoline costs, per month, go up to $308.10. Where am I supposed to come up with the $93.60 per month that it would cost me so that people in a city I neither live nor work in can take the bus, have noise canceling head phones, and sit in first class seats for free?

Your scheme won’t work. The Onorato tax doesn’t work. Those of us who can leave Allegheny County and spend our money at bars where a pint is fifty cents cheaper will do so. PaT is not bailed out, and the owners of the small local bars suffer.

That is the kind of anger people like you create.
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They don’t work as most transit systems have been implemented as experiments and in piecemeal and have got a bad reputation by targeting the wrong customer base.

Now is the time to stop the experiment pick the best technology offering comfort and amenities you want

If your commute is via a 6 lane highway which is bumper to bumper traffic during rush hour then a 1st calss seat can be waiting for you.

As for economic effect on service industry, keep in mind countless 10’s of thousands of bars and the like have been displaced by the construction of the interstate highway system in the last 50 years.

[QUOTE=lightingtool]
Dude, this free for ten years public transport is going to have 1st class seats, free noise reduction headphones, piped in vibraphone music (if that’s what you mean by listening to some vibes), and allow drinking? Shit, I’ll sell my house and just live on the train.
[/QUOTE]

Not to mention, according to post 31: no maintenance costs!

Problem: If everybody travels first class, who do we get to look down upon? How can we even define a “first class” if there are no classes of seats?

Oh, I’m so confused…

[QUOTE=catsix]
Your scheme won’t work. The Onorato tax doesn’t work. Those of us who can leave Allegheny County and spend our money at bars where a pint is fifty cents cheaper will do so. PaT is not bailed out, and the owners of the small local bars suffer.

That is the kind of anger people like you create.
[/QUOTE]
What does the Onorato drink tax have to do with our public transit?

What about those of us who want a vital and prosperous city of Pittsburgh in order to have something for surrounding communities to surround? What, is Washington or Greensburg going to generate enough economic capacity to support a reasonably sized population?

I’d like to see a much improved mass transit system so that people don’t have to commute to Wexford or Beaver or New Castle because more people can actually live and work closer to Pittsburgh, meaning that business can draw from a larger population of potential employees, and perhaps more importantly, a larger population of consumers. It may be that a transit system needs a big city to be viable, but I think a city needs a transit system to become a viable big city. I’m tired of seeing the population of Pittsburgh shrink.

The bottom line, most important question is: Do you want to see the Butler Steelers, or maybe the LA Steelers?

[QUOTE=focusonz]
I was thinking that I could stretch out, listen to some vibes, and get an early start on the evening drinking.
[/QUOTE]
We’re pretty sure you already have.