Libertarian:
Just off the top of my head. . .might it be because Hassey-Mae’s county/city/municipality doesn’t collect the requisite taxes to provide mass transit? And, do the people who live up the holler with Hassey-Mae want to pay the taxes required? If the answers are “yes” and “no”, then you’ve got your answer.
Yes, possibly. Of course she is. Perhaps. For more, see my response above.
Waste
Flick Lives!
Oh, a formula! Neat.
So transportation is the responsibility of the county and below? But aren’t we all Americans? What if the population of the local county is too poor to afford busses? Why isn’t something so vital and necessary as transportation the responsibility of the federal government, like education?
[… quietly containing myself …]
Y’know, if I gave an answer like that, Kim and her army would be all over me. Like the colorful golf hat that Rodney Dangerfield poked fun of in Caddy Shack, I guess it looks good on you, though.
But anyway, I think I get it now.
The idea seems to be that we will deal with the transportation problems of the rural poor by putting them out of our minds.
Libertarian:
Hell, the state can get involved, too. And if it’s down as a priority, I suppose that the federal government could get in on the action.
Yes, yes we are. And if the tax base is too small to support public transportation, then they will probably get by without it. As far as why there is no Department of Public Transportation? I dunno. Maybe you should write up a study on it and see what you can do to get it up and running.
As far as,
I’ve been gone from the boards for a couple of months, so I can’t comment on what degree of persecution you might have to contend with. But martyrdom is like lime green, it’s a shade that should be assiduously avoided by almost everyone.
Except for the fact that you don’t seem to get it. I don’t think that anyone is saying that we should blithely go on our way, and pretend that everything is just ducky down Copperhead Road, but there are priorities, and sometimes public transportation winds up pretty far down the list.
Waste
Flick Lives!
Lib you smug bastard 
(Note: I say it with love).
You know as well as anyone here that not all people are created equal. In America (as well as other places) it’s the constitution that makes them equal.
So if Haasie-Mae in butt-fuck Arkansas chooses to live in a shack and hunt possum all her days then we are required to allow her to do just that. On the other hand, we are not required to supply her with all the luxuries of life that an urban tax base provides.
You know that all these services are not benevolent acts of gov’t. Someone’s got to pay for them and the resources are always limited by the contributing tax pool.
If Haasie-Mae chooses to move to NYC and become part of the population, she too could partake of all the subsidized city services - whether she was able to contributed to them or not.
I know you understand this, why am I even saying it…
GLWasteful
Well, it takes a village, you know.
Okay. [… seconds pass …] Here ya go!
The United States Department of Transportation
They are “leading the way to transportation excellence in the 21st century”. If you don’t believe it, just ask them (nevermind that the 21st century isn’t here yet…). They’re proposing to spend $54,900,000,000.00 next year. That should take care of things, because they spent only $49,000,000,000.00 last year, and here we are bitching, so it clearly wasn’t enough.
QuickSilver
How can Hassey-Mae move when she has no transportation? Do you want her to walk to New York?
Yes Lib, she can walk to the nearest town and catch a bus. She can ask her Paw to drive her in their 1922 pick-me-up. Hell, even hitch up ol’ Bessy to the wagon and clatter down the lane to the highway where she can hitch a ride.
Where there’s a will there is usually a way.
Mass Transit requires MASS Libertarian!
If a municipality is expanding, it will eventually come to head that some kind of public transportation is necessary because eventually, the negatives (cost for start-up and upkeep is the only real one until I get some cites from our OP on the rest) are outweighed by the positives (less polution, less traffic, there’s more) and it is something the city has to deal with.
I lived in NYC and they dealt with these issues over a hundred years ago with the first trolleys.
Now, I live in Raleigh (a smaller Southern city than and actually, public transportation is a big deal here as the three cities that make up the triangle (Raleigh, Durham & Chapel Hill) all have their own little bus systems, and the traffic that makes I-40 (the route between the three cities) a parking lot every morning and afternoon is making it that local officials who come up with the best ideas on how to solve this will win elections.
(My vote is for a Subway on I-40 a la the Metro in DC for commuters to drive to the Subway.)
Libertarian, please stop being contrary. Mass Transportation, as I said, has to be cost effective for the whole community or what is the point? Having a bus taking Hassey-Mae from her shack to the bait show she works at down yonder is NOT good for a community and is NOT cost effective.
And if she wants to escape the drudgery of this existance, she can always call Greyhound, which will take her all across this fine country for a nominal fee - and that IS a form of public transportation too, bucko!
Yer pal,
Satan
[sub]I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Four months, one week, 13 hours, 9 minutes and 47 seconds.
5181 cigarettes not smoked, saving $647.74.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 3 days, 23 hours, 45 minutes.[/sub]
"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey![/sub]
Libertarian:
Yeah, yeah, I remember hearing that somewhere. . .
Oh, and Lib? I knew about the DOT. You might wanna check the sarcasm receiving unit on your computer, because my sending unit is in fine form.
And I second QuickSilver. If she wants to take advantage of urban amenities, then she needs to move to an urban area. If, on the other hand, she enjoys living in wherever it is that you have placed her, then she needs to understand that there are tradeoffs. Priorities, too.
and this:
Yeah, I really think that it must be your receiving unit, because your sarcasm sending unit (as seen above) seems to be working fine.
Waste
Flick Lives!
I noticed SouthernStyle never jumped back in. I live in a city slightly bigger than his. I can say Jatran does a good job considering it gets shafted each year by the government. Right, while you’re complaining, transit authorities have been making do with less money. We’ve come close to losing Jatran, and it’s a godsend for those who can’t afford a car.
Well, what kind of left liberal impersonation would I be doing if I could take what I dish out? But at Satan’s request, I will bow out now.
[… leaves mumbling something about how nobody explained how Hassey-Mae is supposed to move to New York without any transporation …]
Hey Lib -
Get off the cross. We need the… oh,hell… we’ve been tellin’ you boy. You just ain’t listenin’. We keep chickin’ em but you keep duckin’ em.
There is public transportation available for Miss Mae to get to NYC. It just doesn’t make a stop at her shack for all the reasons mentioned above.
You’re not going to take your bat and ball home are you?..
All the points about why buses are needed are good ones. But let’s look at the other side of the coin. If the mass-transit system were dis-mantled, what would result?
People would have to rely on personal cars to get around.
Roads and freeways can only handle so much traffic. After that you have gridlock, traffic jams and sky-rocketing number of accidents becaue there are too many cars in too small a space.
Build more roads? First you have to find the money to build the roads, which means public bonds and tax increases. Then you actually contruct them. The county or state must buy the land, clear it, THEN start constructing. That means even more traffic jams, delays, etc, for road construction.
By the time the new roads are open, they’re almost obsolete. In the time it’s taken to construct them, even MORE people are driving cars.
I live in Austin, TX. This city is having a great technology boom. There are jobs aplenty for those that want them. People are flocking to Austin. Unfortunately, our infra-structure can’t handle it. All the conditions I’ve mentioned above are happening here NOW. And the road construction isn’t due to be finished for several years.
Austin does have a mass transit system, but compared to other cities I’ve lived in (Milwaukee, WI) or traveled in extensively (Chicago IL), it’s pretty pathetic. It’s inefficent and poorly managed. People use it only thru Hobson’s choice, they have no other way to get around. I used it for a while, when I had no car when I first came to Austin. Compared to well-run systems, like Milwaukee, it’s pretty bad.
Southern, you don’t like the mass transit system, that’s your perogative, but do you have a better solution?
Freyr, good points all. Particularly about Austin. I visited about 10 or so years ago, and while the mass-transit system was far from the most ideal, it was almost quaint in it’s smallness. Although I must say that what existed around the campus seemed to be really good. I was last there a couple of years ago, and it’s no longer quaint, it’s just too damned small and inefficient.
I live in Kansas City, and our mass transit system is terrible. At the same time, I’ve spent time in other (read: eastern) cities with really good transportation. 'Samatter of fact, I have every intention of moving east in a few years. I’ve spent too much time with a car. I wanna let someone else do the driving from here on out.
And I think the extent of SouthernStyle’s solution is to eliminate that which he doesn’t use, but pays for in taxes. Which, as has been pointed out, is pretty damned foolish.
Waste
Flick Lives!
Libertarian: Y’know, if I gave an answer like that, Kim and her army would be all over me.
Wow, I didn’t know I had an army—cool!! Who’s in it? What’s my rank? Do we have spiffy uniforms?
Back on the topic, more or less: Lib, you’ll be relieved to hear that the Department of Transportation is thinking about Hassie-Mae Hatfield and how it can help her get around. There are pages and pages of the USDOT website devoted to rural transport, how to improve it, and the role of public transit within it. You might like to start with their discussion of ARTS, the Advanced Rural Transportation Systems program. So not to worry, the government is indeed devoting some of its Money Extorted from Peaceful Honest People ™ to the transit needs of the rural population.
As for responding to your ironic suggestions, I think that Satan and other posters have done a good job of pointing out the obvious objection that mass transit requires massed people, and that therefore meeting rural transit needs in an efficient and cost-effective way cannot be done by just scattering bus systems heedlessly over the whole continent. Goodness knows, Lib, you’re free to despise “left-liberal” or progressive views on this or any other subject as much as you like. But do you really believe that we’re being hypocritical for supporting mass transit just because it can’t be useful to everybody? If you think that being liberal or progressive necessarily implies demanding that everybody everywhere should get the exact same benefits from public enterprises, then you don’t know much about these political philosophies.
Sorry for the delay in getting back, folks. As much as I hate to say it, work is more important than perusing the SDMB.
Satan, I wasn’t looking for an argument. A debate, sure – even better would be a straight answer. But I read your first post as confrontational and even a bit condescending, thought that the thread was already in the crapper, and responded in what I perceived to be similar fashion. Apologies if I misunderstood.
For the record, I am in Tallahassee, Florida as kaylasdad99 so easily discovered and pointed out. The roads here are neither sufficient nor becoming for a city that is the state capital nearing a population of a quarter million. The major roadways are pavement on top of old trails. The city was formed around the crossing of two trails and became the state capital simply because of the crossroads. The center of town is defined by the crossing of US 90, four lanes east-west, and US 27, four lanes north-south. There is a “beltway” around town that is 2, 3, 4, or 6 lanes, depending upon the exact location. Other major roads tend to “spoke” from the center of town toward the outlying areas. There are several other 4+ lane roads that extend more than a few blocks (SR 20 E-W, Tharpe E-W, Gaines E-W, Lake Bradford N-S, Blairstone N-S, Thomasville N-S). The roadways do not include “pull-offs” for the busses. Many of the main spokes have been designated by-law as “canopy roads”. They are lined by 100+ year old oak trees and expansion or widening requires jumping legal hurdles that the local government has imposed upon itself. Personally, I can’t jump that high and I know of noone else that can.
That should cover the question of whether the busses actually interfere with automobile traffic.
kimstu found the local site describing the city’s mass transit offerings. Thanks for filling in some blanks, though I’ll pass on having you put words in my mouth to my local government. 
The city establishes bus fare rates such that revenues will cover approximately 20% of expenditures. When the city establishes its annual budget, these things tend to get reported and posted in the local paper. (The paper is my “source”. If I can find the figures on the web I’ll post the URL.)
The per passenger-mile pollution statement also is an echo of statistics found in the local paper (albeit a while back). I’ve not seen them on the web so I can’t point you to a link. This makes some sense as demographics vary from location to location and maintaining a site with bus/car emission rates for the countries largest 500 cities is not trivial.
Busses here are not heavily utilized. The pollution reference is per passenger mile not liters/second. It may be worth noting that the bus fleet is quite new – the city has spared no (taxpayer) expense to have a modern fleet of busses. The suggestion by APB9999 of more and smaller busses as a solution may not be practical as the emission control systems are already modern era. The “Old Town Trolley” referenced by Kimstu is a downtown bus route serviced by a bus that looks like an old trolley car.
I have no truck with those of you in large urban or metro areas where mass transit makes sense. I cannot imagine life in NYC, Chicago, or SF without some sort of mass transit. But the survival of metropolitan areas is not necessarily dependent upon mass transit, either. The two million people in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area seem to get to and from the grocery store with minimal reliance on a mass transit system.
My position is that mass transit in Tallahassee, Florida is costly, inconvenient, and polluting. And I’d like to dismantle the damned thing.
When I read Drain Bead’s post I got a feeling of sympathy for her. Let me respond in civil, but direct, kind.
You are a self-proclaimed member of the “less fortunate” and have a job that you “love”. Your attachment to the job is such that you’d inconvenience friends to keep it, but would rather rely on the checkbooks of strangers. The picture that I get is that you’ve traded the support of your parents for the support of the taxpayer. Personally, I could never accept that as my way of life.
Much as I hate to wade into a subject that’s had a lot of thought-provoking debate (and I mean that honestly, I’m not one for cheap sarcasm), could I also add another point about the costs/benefits of public transport? SouthernStyle quite correctly argues that bus transport is largely subsidised by taxpayers. However, have you added in the cost to the taxpayer of road building and maintenance into the equation? Even here in the UK, where road building schemes are a fraction of those in the States, roadworks take up one-third of the transportation budget. Sure, most of that here is paid for by fuel taxes, but (as anyone who has lived both places can affirm) US fuel taxes are trivial compared with those of the UK. (Would you believe gas costs £4.50, or $6.75, a gallon here, because of tax?) UK Government subsidies to bus and rail companies are tiny compared to the road budget. I suspect that the same is true with Florida. Hence, motorists benefit from government spending as well. I won’t even begin to factor in the added cost to the taxpayer from payments to Medicare and Medicaid for people without health insurance who are injured in traffic accidents.
Second, minor, point: I do not own a car, and I live within walking distance of my job. Supposing I only walked to all my social events, would I have a good reason to call for the dismantling of all local roads?
Thanks for readin’,
Duke
“The two million people in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area seem to get to and from the grocery store with minimal reliance on a mass transit system.”
Don’t think so. The Twin Cities have an extensive bus system. http://www.metrocouncil.org/transit/index.asp
Metro provides around 240,000 rides a day on 132 bus routes. And at least some of those routes must be VERY busy – 115 of their 971 buses are articulateds (the extra-long buses that bend in the middle). Articulated buses are a b*tch to maintain** and transit authorities don’t mess with them unless they need them to carry major passenger loads.
**No matter what you do, the rubber gaskets where the two halves meet WILL leak! In Boston, the old articulated streetcars were called “two rooms and a bath” by the riders for the obvious reason.
I’m not attempting to belittle the bus system in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Hell, anyone that pipes Beethoven into the bus stop can’t be all bad.
The reference to this particular system was a poor attempt to show scale. NYC couldn’t function by promoting the bus system to the exclusion of the subway. Chicago needs the L. SF needs it’s trolley’s. Boston needs…
Florida cities that require mass transit have, so far, been limited to bus lines. This includes the Tampa, Jacksonville, and Miami metropolitan areas. They are similar in size and population to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
SouthernStyle to Drain Bead on her use of public transit: *The picture that I get is that you’ve traded the support of your parents for the support of the taxpayer. Personally, I could never accept that as my way of life. *
Oh, you think not? You imagine that just because you paid for your own car and its fuel and upkeep, that your automobile use isn’t still heavily dependent on “the support of the taxpayer”? Check out this discussion of the ways taxpayers subsidize private automobile use. Taxpayers on average are paying less money to support the transit needs of people like Drain Bead than those of people like you.
Um…would the fact that I am 22 and still in college change your assessment of me somewhat? I put quotes around “less fortunate” to show that your use of that phrase was a little hasty, to say the least. I wouldn’t consider the average college student to be a member of those who are “less fortunate,” but in this college town, the bus system is as much for students as it is for the poor, the disabled, or the park-and-ride yuppie. It’s not economically feasible to have a car on campus unless your parents pay for it or you have a much better-paying job than any I’ve managed to get. I’d have to pay $30 a month for parking at my place, and that’s on top of car payments, gas, and insurance. And my parents pay for enough already, thanks. So before you start tarring me with that brush, maybe you should stop to read my post and realize that when I say I have no other choice, I meant it. In your selfish flurry to get rid of something that doesn’t benefit you, you’ve forgotten about the folks who truly need the service being offered.
And as I recall, I said that the pressure was on you to come up with more viable alternative. I’ve seen nothing from you except complaining about your horrible, horrible taxes. No effort to come up with something better. Want to try that one again?