Oil Junkies

Or how personal convenience and productivity led America from slow, crowded, impersonal mass transit to personal, convenient, point-to-point transportation. I use a trolley when the personal cost is lower than driving my car which is pretty rare. Am I "greedy?" Sure. Were the developer of mass transit systems corrupt? How do you think they got all those right-of-ways?

 

Without going into too much of an argument here...

I'll start riding mass transit when I'm able to get from one point to another without taking any more than 2 separate vehicles.

Also when it's more convient as far as time savings, as it seems that they count people stuck in traffic as "lost productivity" well me taking 30 minutes from my door to work, should count for something when it'll ordinarily take 20 minutes to walk to one form of mass transit, assuming I timed it perfectly, 45 minutes to the closest station near my work, another 15 minutes waitin for another form of mass transist and 20 minutes ontop of that waiting to get to work.

And to talk about the greed and green value of mass transist how about the green and corruption in mass transist? How many 6 figure plus salaries are on a "board of directors" who do a minimal amount of work? How many 6 figure salaries are there in upper management?? And in the case of San Francisco Muni, how many 6 figure salaries are they giving out due to allowing lots of overtime without restriction??? how many drivers have gotten into careless accidents multiple times and not been fired?

Yeah, maybe in the day's of yesteryear mass transist was a great thing, today, it's got quite a few bugs to work out to really be a cheap effective and efficient form of transporting the masses around. Until that day comes I'll stick with one of the more fuel efficient vehicles out there and make my green choice that way.

 

Most of us will be using mass transit when we become too old to drive.

 

I think you guys are missing the point of the article -it's not about the convenience of cars vs. mass transit...
:blink:
it's more how electric transportation was thwarted in favor of the internal combustion engine and in that perspective how we wouldn't be in the oil addiction mode we are now if the GM cartel did not overstep the law in the early 20th cent...

the author also makes a great point about Toyota & the current scam of Ethanol
"Alternative fuel leaders such as Honda, BMW, and Toyota have refused to jump on the ethanol bandwagon. They know that corn ethanol is not so much an alternative as it is a petroleum adjunct merely backed by a strong lobbying and advertising campaign--big corn and big oil getting together at the expense of America's future."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(rebbi @ Aug 28 2006, 02:12 PM) [snapback]310663[/snapback]</div>

Thanks again for the post, I'm looking forward to this read when it is released next month!

 

From the article:
"So what's the answer?

The answer is hydrogen--everywhere abundant, and it can be produced in our back yards in small, inexpensive boxes."

This is a serious disconnect from reality. I did some fooling around with electrolysis in middle school. Almost burned the house down. Hydrogen generation is not for the backyard tinkerer. In fact, the "Who killed the electric car?" crowd would indict him.