The war will be on Lamont’s agenda again Wednesday when he campaigns with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and a strong anti-war voice.

The richest nation on Earth and it has a working poor. It’s a fucking disgrace.

Mad Dogs @
88

Cities like New York, Chicago, Boston could not function without their subways with their millions of daily riders.

Don’t forget San Francisco and DC. And you know that real estate prices take public transit into account- if you live outside of SF, you can just about draw your own map of BART stations by plotting apartment rents on a street map.

However, I think the argument that you’re missing is DENSITY. Population density is one of the factors that makes public transit a viable option for a given city- it solves the chicken-and-egg problem, which is this: If you don’t have enough people to make the system profitable when you run the trains every 10 minutes, you just run the trains less frequently so that you can still break even. But if you don’t run the trains frequently enough, it’s too inconvenient to take the train, because you have to wait too long for the next one to come.

The easiest solution is to just add people. So if city planners and developers can create concentrations of density localized within walking distance of transit stations, you are providing a guaranteed customer base for that transit system. And as I think readers from the SF bay area will agree, when gas prices go up, more people will ride the trains.

but the key component of this kind of density is high-rise apartment buildings, or lots of houses very close together. And when you get right down to it, lots of Americans don’t want to live like that- they want a huge lawn, and a 10-acre lot with fruit trees and a fish pond and a cactus garden, and a 4000-sq foot detached house with a 4 car garage and hot and cold running White Zinfandel on the mini-golf course. Think Plano, Texas- where the rich people from Dallas go to live, because Dallas is too dense. Everything is two, or at most three, stories high, there are NO sidewalks ANYWHERE, and if you wanted to build a light rail project they would probably just as soon laugh at you as shoot you in the face.

But you can’t have a viable system if the density doesn’t exist first. You can’t force the density by building the system first- the money just doesn’t work like that.

expensive energy anticipates density

Cities like New York, Chicago, Boston could not function without their subways with their millions of daily riders.

Don’t forget San Francisco and DC. And you know that real estate prices take public transit into account- if you live outside of SF, you can just about draw your own map of BART stations by plotting apartment rents on a street map.

However, I think the argument that you’re missing is DENSITY. Population density is one of the factors that makes public transit a viable option for a given city- it solves the chicken-and-egg problem, which is this: If you don’t have enough people to make the system profitable when you run the trains every 10 minutes, you just run the trains less frequently so that you can still break even. But if you don’t run the trains frequently enough, it’s too inconvenient to take the train, because you have to wait too long for the next one to come.

The easiest solution is to just add people. So if city planners and developers can create concentrations of density localized within walking distance of transit stations, you are providing a guaranteed customer base for that transit system. And as I think readers from the SF bay area will agree, when gas prices go up, more people will ride the trains.

but the key component of this kind of density is high-rise apartment buildings, or lots of houses very close together. And when you get right down to it, lots of Americans don’t want to live like that- they want a huge lawn, and a 10-acre lot with fruit trees and a fish pond and a cactus garden, and a 4000-sq foot detached house with a 4 car garage and hot and cold running White Zinfandel on the mini-golf course. Think Plano, Texas- where the rich people from Dallas go to live, because Dallas is too dense. Everything is two, or at most three, stories high, there are NO sidewalks ANYWHERE, and if you wanted to build a light rail project they would probably just as soon laugh at you as shoot you in the face.

But you can’t have a viable system if the density doesn’t exist first. You can’t force the density by building the system first- the money just doesn’t work like that.

Most of my age group, 14-17, worked in kitchens. I guess we were just plain lucky.

Hey, I just read that again, and it did not sound at all like I wanted it to come out. I was trying to work in some foleygate snark, and it just didn’t happen.

I apologize for my comment if it seems like I was attacking you, your willingness to work, or the legitimacy of what you were doing. I waited tables while I was in college and for part of the following year, so I have a very healthy respect for busboys. They can make a waiter’s job a whole lot easier… or they can make sure that nobody leaves a tip for you at all.

Most of my peers had a hard time working for money anywhere other than family business (dad runs the local McDonalds, so you can be a cashier… for no pay) before we turned 18. Maybe Kalamazoo just didn’t have enough restaurants…

The trouble with public transportation is that it doesn’t go where people want to go. It’s fine for the people living in the close in suburbs who work in city center- the trouble is that most cities don’t work like that any more.

Our cities and neighborhoods mostly developed AFTER the automobile- and people live and work in distant places.

Most of the time- it would take half a day and three transfers to get to where you want to go.

I’m saying this politely and with all due respect, but you’re full of it my friend. :-)

Don’t get me started about the century-long battle between “public” transporation and “private” transportation.

Do you remember “What’s good for General Motors is good for America”? Guess who wrote the laws that built our Interstate Freeway system?

And in the process deliberately and with malice aforethought, killed off the more effective, efficient and economical “public transportation” capabilities we should have had.

If you stop and really think about it, no Urban Planner (who hasn’t been bought out by the corporate system) would have any problem at all putting in an effective, efficient and economical public transportation system.

I remember my parents telling me how they and their parents got around everywhere just fine by streetcars.

I remember growing up and watching our “bought-out” Urban Planners rip up those very same “public transporation” streetcar tracks to make “left-turn” lanes for “private” automobiles.

Cities like New York, Chicago, Boston could not function without their subways with their millions of daily riders.

Dozens and dozens of European cities still depend on public transportation. And a great many of them were either built from scratch or totally rebuilt after WW II.

If you really thought about it, there is almost no street or roadway that couldn’t handle a streetcar.

No, the reason we do not and won’t have effective, efficient and economical public transportation system has nothing to do at all with the layout of our cities and suburbs.

It has everything to do with who runs the show and how they can profit by taking the most money from the rubes (us) that they can!

Ahh… TRex, now maybe a celebration of public libraries would be a good topic for a Late Nite, if you are ever stumped as to what to write. When I lived in Britain (years ago) it was said that political researchers in Britain would phone US public libraries to get into that they couldn’t get in the UK- our “freedom of information act” and all that. Tho that was way pre-internet.

I make just under $25K a year and am barely squeaking by. And I live in one of the cheapest cities in the southeast. My apartment is $450/mo. and I’m just feeding me and two cats, but still, if there’s any kind of emergency like car trouble, health problems, or veterenary emergencies, I’m totally dissed. One paycheck away from having to cash it all in and move home to my parents’.

And I SOOOOOOOOOOOO do not want to ever have to do that.

You are one book away from everyone here buying it and suddenly *poof* you have a new income. One chapter a week. I’m sure you can fit that in, right?