Bloody Politicians

Not quite. Freeways and private automobiles are very successful; the failure has been in our public policy that requires them to be used at slow speeds in traffic, increasing the gasoline used. And while the air is much cleaner than it was 25 years ago because of the advances in technology, it could be that much cleaner by cutting the time the internal combustion engines are on by about half.

Since the grand "car pool experiment" started 25 years ago, there has not been any slow down in growth of suburbs, nor has there been any increase in the number of people who carpool. Only government is this slow to learn that something doesn't work, or to continue to push for non-working "solutions" even after it's evident they have failed.

Light rail and mass transit will work only in areas where a strong urban core has the jobs, and all the people live in suburbs ... areas like Manhattan, Chicago and Washington DC have this model. And note that is exactly the opposite of the idea of limiting where people can live so that they live close to work (a la a totalitarian regime). But in areas like Southern California, where workplaces and housing are spread out over a wide area, you get the absurb experiments in mass transit where MORE pollution is given off by the mass transit per rider than if each of those people were driving their own late model car to work.

Some combination of private vehicle, affording the most freedom of schedule and movement, and public roadways is the practical solution. Rather than continuing to support failed 1970's experiments and ideas, we need to look towards meeting the consumer's needs while solving the problems we have. Recycling old ideas that are proven failures over 25 years of tweaking and trying is not going to get the job done.

 

I don't stay up on politics as well as many... but didnt' the president just sign a bill that would award Billions of dollars for roads and highways?
What happened to that... did I get squashed?
And if its still in play... why in the world are they trying to finagle more?

 

I wonder if any studies have been done showing the benifit of "removing" car pool lanes?
Thier original intent was to inspire people to share by riding together thereby lessening the # of cars?
I don't know how much of that has actually inspired carpooling or not... but I do see the carpool lanes empty or little traveled while the other lanes are packed?

I don't have to drive in such traffic, but I used to in Houston... it really sucks!... I solved the problem by moving where I don't have to drive in traffic.
I could get paid quite a bit more if I were willing.. but life is too short to deal with that every day!

It would be fun to do a little test for 6 months... odd days... you have carpool lanes... even days you don't, its open to everybody...

That would probrably be chaotic, but I would love to see the results if you could monitor it.

 

that does sound a bit like some rich dude or dudes have some political clout.... that doesn't make sense.

The money shoul be spent where the money comes from.

 

Hey.. I know how to fix it!....If they don't want us driving fuel efficient cars, lets just all get hummers and the hell with the roads?... all we need are bridges then, and we can use even more gas and get everywhere slower!.... that should provide lots of gasoline tax dollars!
Would that make them happy?

I mentioned in an other post how if we developed technology that would free us from gas, the they would just find another way to tax and/or control us. If we ran off of water, they would still want thier tax. How do you escape tax? Would they try to tax water?

 

Your idea of opening up carpool lanes is simply stupid. In the first place, it wouldn't make much of a difference (there aren't that many miles of carpool lanes compared to the total lane miles along metro freeways). In the second, any gains would be quickly offset by the increase in use due to increased development along the new thoroughfare. This pattern of development and population growth has operated for many centuries along many different types of "roads" (particularly railroads and rivers). The new wrinkle in the 20th century has been the delusional attempt to squeeze millions of single-passenger cars into a small geographical space at the same time. This creates not only traffic jams, but also enormous wasted space in the form of parking lots. While there is a place for the automobile, that place is not along the 15 freeway between Escondido and Mission Valley, the 91 freeway from Riverside to Orange County, the 5 between Del Mar and San Diego, or the 5, 101, 405, 57, or or or pretty much anywhere in Orange and LA counties. In short, the automobile has no place in solving the commuting problem. Indeed, it was the automobile that created the commuting problem in the first place.

And don't give me any shit about your watered-down notions of "totalitarian" government. The decision to construct freeways instead of mass transit lines was a bad public policy decision that was carried out with good public money. It was a bad decision then, and continuing down the same "road" is just as bad a decision now.

 

Your sentiment is idealistic, but remember that this gas tax is meant to pay for something essential that INDIVIDUALS have no power to control... ideally, all money going into this fund should be earmarked for one singular purpose:

The repair and maintenance of our highway system... Only a body like our federal goverment could possibly do this... and if nothing is done to replenish this highway trust fund, the resulting "problem" will be worse traffic, deteriorating roads... and more and more damage done to YOUR cars because of potholes for example. How will personal resposibility steer you clear through that?

There's no need to be reactionary, and be careful to depict ALL taxes like they're all evil social programs... this is an essential and legitamate need for money...

 

Many of mine are too.

Humm ...Hopefully we won't kill each other on the forum.. these are very touch topics indeed!

Well I guess thats why we vote all different directions. A dollar that serves one guy well, does absolutely nothing for another.

Carpool lanes, buses do absolutely nothing for me.... yet there are plenty of others it serves well.

We all live in different parts of the country with different economic tensions and different needs, yet we all fall under the same governmental laws that attempt to satisfy us all.

What is "stupid" for one, truly may be, yet at the same time may be very benificial for another.

The guy who smugly flys by traffic while in the carpool lane figures it serves him well... while the other guy stuck in bumper to bumper gets angry while he takes another 20 minutes to get to work knowing that lane could be used to speed everybody up?

when we get short.... rather than fix the problem, we bandaid it and are constantly taking from Peter to pay Paul.

This is a very complex and multivaried problem. I know of no solutions that serve all well at the same time.

The fact of the matter is, we will have to see the big picture and be tolerant and patient while others are served while we wait.... kinda like at the restaurant!
Then our time comes to be served while others wait!

The same thing happens in our own families.... we are tolerant, we fight against each other and we fight "for" each other... our Nation is no different.

If we can try to consider each other as well as ourselves, we may be able to come to some solutions that actually work for all. That is supposedly what our politians attempt to do.

If we fight among ourselves and devalue each others opinions are we not committing the same crimes we accuse our self centered politians and corporate powers against?

Its alot of fun out here and nice that we can talk and all be friends at the same time while discussing some very interesting topics ...I've just noticed that every time we start fighting, the solutions tend to degrade to nothing.

I'm sure someone will want to scold me for trying to break up a good fight..... but thats ok too. I love intense comversation, but fighting and hating is no fun!

We are really all on the same side as long as its not all about us.

Polititians can be real jerks worthy of condemnation, yet at the same time they can be excellent scapegoats!
Many start off to do a good thing and simply get overwhelmed by the issues and powers that be. All we can do is support the ones that appear to be our for all of us.

When we only support the ones that hold only "our" interest, then we can't be upset when someone else's intrest get served instead of ours.

In other words..if we are so willing to screw our brother, then we shouldn't get mad when we get screwed!

I would hate to be a polititian or a lawyer. Because if I was popular with my peers, I would probrably be crooked, yet if I was honest, I may be very lonely.

 

sigh... more reasons to be annoyed with the universe...

you know, this is typical big american business bull****. don't buy 'green' because we'll tax you and the horse you rode in on to death. blame the hybrid owners. all (what, 1% of cars on the road today?) of them are tearing up the roads and not paying any gas taxes along the way.

gotta blame someone.

and if all transportation related taxes increase across the board, that's going to really hit the poorer classes hard. like they're not going through enough crap as it is in this economy.

and what of the farmers, who use 90% of their fuel in fields and not on roads? the road going through my family's farm back home is gravel anyway. they use it twice a day- on a less-than-one-mile stretch. how much sense does it make to tax them? very little.

 

There are conflicting studies on it, with the status quo being defended vigoursly. They do have some mixed use lanes in the San Jose area, and I've heard they had to keep changing the time the lanes could be used. As soon as the lanes open up to mixed traffic, the traffic flows smoothly. So they moved the time the lanes can be used by mixed traffic to make sure traffic was slow for people choosing to take their own cars to work. No fair flexing your hours to make sure you can drive to work at 9am instead of 8am! We want to punish you, even if it means we use more gasoline, pollute more of our air ... we have a point to prove!

A test would be nice. The problem right now is that the Federal Government, through the nectar of highway tax dollars, requires a certain amount of car pool lanes to be built, and the states would lose the tax dollars if they converted the lanes back to mixed use. So even if it would make sense, even if would conserve oil, even if it would reduce commute times and lessen pollution ... we can't even try it.

Mass transit suffers from several problems, not the least of which is that people don't feel safe using it, it is inconvenient, they have a major problem if their child is sick at school and the next bus doesn't come for an hour, and it costs as much as the gas to drive somewhere. Plus, you are mixed in with people you might not want to mix with normally. I've ridden mass transit in many cities, and the stench and undesireable people in most areas make it something I would never want my children or my wife to have to endure (a notable exception was Washington DC).

A solution that addresses at least some of these problems are the PRT systems being discussed (see http://gettherefast.org/bettercampus.html) Even better would be a system that allows you to drive your personal PRT vehicle onto the grid, using solely electric power, and then ride to the station near work, drive off the grid and to your office. You have more safety, and you don't have to put up with vomit on the floor or thugs.

 

Yeah, the yearly highway bill. Its a mixed bag of worthwhile projects and spending on things that just don't make sense. There's a bridge being built in Alaska that has the "Golden Fleece" type of people upset ... it will cost millions for use by very few people.

I don't think federal funds are used very efficiently. For one, not every state gets back an amount equal to what they put in ... Alaska is a "creditor state", that gets much more back in federal tax dollars than it sends in. Larger states, like California and Texas, are "debtor states", who send in many more dollars than they ever get back. In effect, we are subsidizing folks in Alaska with our income taxes, and providing the federal services for them that states don't provide (defense, federal court system, etc.)

 

Well, I apologize if this issue is so dear to you that it forced you over the line into incivility and profanity. Usually those kind of reactions are for closely felt and ardently supported positions like religion and questions about a person's paternity.

You may think my ideas are "stupid", but I have 25 years of proof that your ideas have failed. Why not try, as a test, opening up more lanes along one of those corridors? Or is the prospect that it might work so threatening to your faith in a failed experiment from the 1970s that you cannot bear it?

The decision to produce more traffic congestion was one made on purpose, by social engineers and idealistic politicians, to force us into car pools. The projections were that we would run out of oil soon. The predictions were wrong, and the experiment failed. It cost billions of dollars. It has had unexpected consequences. But, like a religion, people cling to it, with ardent support, red faces and anger.

If you think you can force people to live in bad neighborhoods to reduce the amount of gasoline they use without loss of freedom, I would be interested in knowing how.

 

Fuel used on private farms is already tax exempt. I know that they color the diesel fuel that is tax exempt, so that they can check to see that the farmer isn't cheating (my cousins farms all use diesel fuel in their equipment, but I don't know how the tax exempt gasoline is marked.)

 

Oh man.. Wynder... It hurts to look at those teeth!... I hope you are being bottle fed, otherwise mom is in for trouble! :lol: :lol:

I got to thinkin about my statement yesterday about how it would be unfair to just tax the Hybrid folks... but I think thats exactly whats on target!

Simply because if they make it across the board, then the gas guzzelers will be double taxed!... I bet that would be ashamed!... we would really see a demand for hybrids then and like someone said, the viscous cycle would backfire on them the Chamber of Commerce!
I know the US is great and much better than many places... its amazing we make it with so many doo - doo brains in power!

Sometimes I feel like moving to Costa Rica! "permanently!"

Opps... was that doe doe or doo doo... I think I like doo doo better! :lol:

 

One thing I don't recall seeing mentioned...

The basis of the arguement is that hybrids use less fuel, because they get better milage and as a result pay less in gas taxes, right? So, they propose charging a tax to use, to make up this difference, ultimately killing any gas savings we might see.

What they fail to discuss is how they would determine what's fair to charge. What about the poor soul's who don't get the 50mpg+ that some of us get? What is someone is always doing small trips and only averages 35mpg - should they get hit with the same tax?

I think no matter how one looks at this, there's far too many things wrong for it to ever become a reality. Even in our f'd up government.

 

Hear Hear!... I'll drink to that!.... going to make my coke float right now!

 

This is not a new idea. It was reported in July that Oregon is going to test a system that taxes drivers per mile, rather than per gallon. Their system uses a GPS device to track only the miles driven in Oregon. They have been apparently working on the system for over two years.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/loca...eagetax05m.html