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balataf
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Posted - 03/06/2011 : 6:23:47 PM
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I was considering the juxtaposition betweem parachuting and the ROOFTOP designation. Probably not high enuf even on top the building.
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Country: USA
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bqdude1
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 Posted - 03/09/2011 : 3:26:18 PM
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Getting back to the subject of having something forced on you, I wonder how many of you know that there was a law passed about 15 years ago that stated that all TVs had to have the ability to put captions on the screen for the hard of hearing. I heard that it cost about $15 per TV for this option. The thinking was that the hard of hearing had to otherwise purchase a several hundred dollar set top box that would put the captions on the screen. The few controlled the many. I would rather have paid a small tax (much less than $15) so that the hard of hearing could receive the set top boxes for free instead of having to pay more for a TV.
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Country: USA
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rooftopwilly
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Posted - 03/09/2011 : 8:49:12 PM
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Weird, I replied here the other day, but it isn't here. Anyhow, I do drive a big beast (Ford Expedition), but I'm 6'3", 240 pounds with a bad back and bad knees from my days of jumping out of planes in the Army. It's just much more comfortable to be in a bigger vehicle for me. My wife has a small Ford Focus and I am in so much pain after just a half an hour cramped up in there. I make up for it in the summer though, when I ride the harley.
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Country: USA
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balataf
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Posted - 03/10/2011 : 09:37:24 AM
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RTW, your previous post of 3/6 is at the top of this page, duplicating 3/9.
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Country: USA
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balataf
Forum Member
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Posted - 03/15/2011 : 09:59:22 AM
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When Rail Becomes Ridiculous
Mar 14 2011, Megan McArdle
I often find it hard to convince environmentalists that I really am a rail buff who likes dense, walkable development, and the planet. If that's so, they ask, why do I spend so much time harping on the problems with high speed rail?
My answer is that I wouldn't harp on the problems if the advocates of high speed rail wouldn't make such glaring mistakes. Like, say, the Tampa-Orlando high speed rail project. No matter how much you love trains, and the planet, I think you ought to be skeptical about projects like this. A NY Times article makes it clear just how dimwitted the concept was:
The Tampa-Orlando route had obvious drawbacks: It would have linked two cities that are virtually unnavigable without cars, and that are so close that the new train would have been little faster than driving. But the Obama administration chose it anyway because it was seen as the line that could be built first. Florida had already done much of the planning, gotten many of the necessary permits and owned most of the land that would be needed.
. . . Tampa and Orlando are only 84 miles apart, generally considered too close for high-speed rail to make sense. The train trip, with many stops along the way, would have shaved only around a half-hour off the drive. Since there are no commercial flights between the two cities, the new line would not have lured away fliers or freed up landing slots at the busy airports. And neither Tampa nor Orlando has many public transportation options. So the question arose: Could riders be persuaded to leave their cars behind and buy tickets to places where they would still probably need cars?
. . . The Department of Transportation did not have that many options. Only two states, Florida and California, were deemed far enough along in their planning to receive money for building actual bullet trains -- trains that can travel more than 150 miles an hour, on tracks of their own that are not shared with other trains.
So basically, the feds wanted to spend $2.6 billion, plus any cost overruns or operating costs, to put in a train for which there was no evident demand. Why? Because they didn't have any better options, and they wanted to build a train. The California High Speed Rail project, following similarly sound reasoning, is going to start out in California's not-very-populous Central Valley, because . . . it's easier to get the right of way. Never mind that there aren't any, like, passengers.
Building trains is an immensely costly enterprise--not just financially costly, but environmentally and personally costly, as people and habitats are uprooted, and metal is tortured into rails and switches and cars. If you are going to install one, you should be reasonably certain that there will be people around with an interest in riding your train. After all, a train running mostly empty emits a lot of carbon.
I am a fan of train projects when those projects start with a problem that might be solved by a train, and then work forward to the train. The problem is that in America, those routes are difficult to build, because they're places where there's already a lot of stuff. Rights of way are expensive and time-consuming to obtain, and the project is bound to be blocked by well-organized NIMBYs.
And so the idea seems to have become to build trains where it's possible to build trains, and hope that development follows. But trains succeed where they are better than some alternative form of transportation. In the case of Tampa-Orlando, they're worse than a car, and there isn't even any air travel to replace; in the case of Fresno-Bakersfield, it may be better than a car for a few passengers, but there are too few passengers to make the trains better than cars for the environment.
Meanwhile, projects that do make economic sense, like an actual high-speed Acela, or Southeastern High-Speed Rail Corridor, are going nowhere. They might have a better chance of success if rail advocates hadn't abandoned them in favor of building whizzy demonstration projects with dubious economic appeal.
But is it really a good demonstration project if the train doesn't have any passengers? Or if the people to whom you've demonstrated it finish their trip in Bakersfield, sans car? It seems to me that this is a very good way to demonstrate cost overruns, disappointing passenger figures, and a single-minded committment on the part of rail advocates that defies common sense.
There is a case for rail in the United States. It works in the Northeast Corridor, and it might well be possible to grow it organically to other areas--south from Washington, west from New York. Perhaps it will even work in California. But to make it work, we need to get away from demonstration projects, and start with the projects that make good economic sense. If we do a couple of those, we may inspire more imitators across the country. But if we insist on building trains to nowhere because they're so darn easy to build, we're not going to inspire anything but contempt.
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Edited by - balataf on 03/15/2011 10:11:45 AM |
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Warmskin
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Posted - 03/17/2011 : 02:39:01 AM
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Amen, Balataf!
I would think if people really wanted something, private iniative would supply it. Only government would force this sort of thing down our throat. Why force? When one sells something that no one seems to want, that is the only option one has left.
Not that this link would lead one to an active railway, it does, though, show how private parties can make something useful happen. If it were not useful to people, this outfit would not be in existence.
http://www.wrm.org/
It's based a little ways northeast of the Bay Area. It's a fun place to visit, and it was accomplished by private donors and corporate donations. Pure goodwill is better than a 1000 bureaucrats forcing this upon us.
Trains are an important transportation mode in hauling, and were in the development of the west. Steel wheels on steel tracks are highly efficient. Could not say that about Washington D. C.
In 1980, according to the NHTSA, trains were the safest way of getting around, followed by major airliners, followed by busses, then cars, and least safe were general aviation. The stats of that year were (I can't remember if it was per 1 million or 100,000 passenger miles) 0.4 deaths for trains, 1.0 for airliners, 4 for busses, 13 for cars, and over 100 for small planes -general aviation (where is Sky King when you need him?). So, you're 32 times more likely to have an fatal accident in a car, than on a train. Something to consider when you are travelling to see the family, friends, or worst yet, your in-laws.
At least for trains, when they have mechanical problems, they are on the ground, and won't fall out of the sky. Just hope the engineer on the train is not text-messaging.
Now if they would just have train cars for nudists, that would be a big boon to the passenger rail business. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to have the trains go from one nudist resort to the next.
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." Thomas Jefferson
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Country: USA
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JimmieMac51
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Posted - 03/17/2011 : 2:41:03 PM
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Hmmmm, I wonder if we could get the railroad to designate one car on each passenger line as a nude car. I'd take the train more.
Jimmie
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Country: USA
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rooftopwilly
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Posted - 03/22/2011 : 9:27:55 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by balataf
RTW, your previous post of 3/6 is at the top of this page, duplicating 3/9.
Thanks Balataf. I think it was my computer. My computer finally s#@t the bed on me. It wasn't updating pages correctly, etc.
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Warmskin
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Posted - 03/23/2011 : 04:01:23 AM
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Since we're on the subject of green vehicles, here is a classic old film that shows an electric transit system, based on trains and street cars. They were quite efficient, and they were run by a private company.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhNDZV1uDUg
After a long strike by the union, the government bought them out. The bureaucrats promised no fare raises, no more strikes, and no increased taxes. The gov't broke all three promises, naturally. When you have authority, you don't have to tell people the truth when convincing them to go from private to public operations.
After the gov't bought the private company, the union went on strike, property taxes were collected to help pay for the high level of increased transit spending, and the fares went up. The gov't does not know how to run an economical operation. Expenses automatically go up because of ineffiency, and funding of every silly idea that the transit "authority" came up with. Typical government!
Meanwhile, the East Bay Area citizens are stuck with an albatross that can't run itself without impoverishing its customers. and even people who don't ride their transit vehicles are stuck paying for this system. Wouldn't it be fun if every business could tax you to make sure they have enough funds?
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." Thomas Jefferson
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Country: USA
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bqdude1
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Posted - 03/24/2011 : 11:55:42 AM
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I ran across this article about electric cars in Japan.
The Great Battery Exchange
The knock against electric vehicles has always been their limited range. But a Silicon Valley start-up called Better Place aims to make their “refueling” no different than for a car that runs on gasoline or diesel. The company just completed a seven-month trial in Tokyo during which electric vehicles with depleted batteries pulled into a station and pulled out a few minutes later with a fully charged battery pack. If the idea gets picked up in Japan and elsewhere, cars would likely be able to go 160 kilometers between swaps.
Read more.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/advanced-cars/ev-battery-swappings-first-real-test/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=032411
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Edited by - bqdude1 on 03/24/2011 11:57:09 AM |
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Country: USA
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balataf
Forum Member
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Posted - 03/25/2011 : 10:41:56 PM
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Alas, but Warmskin's tail of woe for socilized transit was strongly duplicated by Philadelpjia's transit system. There was a private system until 1963, at which time I opposed the government takeover. Now, that is one of the things driving Phila. into near-bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, a conncecting line from Phila. to Lindenwold in suburban NJ, was evaluated. The joint Pennsylvania-New Jersey authority would like to get rid of it, but can find no buyers for this gigantic money-loser.
The post by bqdude actually shows more problems. The 160 KM range is only 88 miles. This would also be subject to the temperature problems noted ealier, with freezing or running air conditioning. American distances are much further than Japan's, and Europe also is much more densely populated. Good luck finding this battery-swap action in the empty deserts of the West, or vast stretches of the Plains. While not so bad in the Northeast Corridor, there are comparatively few other areas possible.
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Country: USA
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bqdude1
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Posted - 03/26/2011 : 08:08:14 AM
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One of the problems that was not covered by the Japan project is battery degradation. After several years the batteries will start to not hold as good of charge as a new battery. So you drive in with a good battery and you are traded an older battery. You drive around for several weeks or months charging your battery at home at night and then when you need a swap because you are taking and extended trip you pull into the battery swap station, swap out your battery and leave. In a couple of days you get the bill for a new battery because the old one that you left was determined to be unusable now. It was not your fault, not the person's fault that traded the older battery in before you got it. It is a fault of the system that will have to be taken care of before the system can start working. Maybe something like a surcharge every time that you swap the battery to cover the cost of a new battery that is prorated for the life of the battery.
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Country: USA
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balataf
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Posted - 04/18/2011 : 11:12:14 PM
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The New York Post has an article, one of several different articles in a variety of venues, on GM, and the problems continuing with it.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/government_motors_is_still_lemon_BdOQV86lpsfZx5LkTZd7aK
I was so taken up with these ideas that I "sold short" on 1,000 shares of GM, in anticipation that the price will drop in the next year or so. It looks like a good bet. Check it out for yourself.
For those not familiar with the term,"Selling short" involves selling shares you don't own. You then invest the money and hope that, in time, you can "cover" by buying the stock to replace it, but at a cheaper price. You are responsible for paying out whatever dividends are issued, since you created the shares from nothing.
Only 1,210 Chevy Volts were sold in the first quarter of 2011. Gas prices are also hitting hard at the trucks, SUVs, and larger vehicles where GM does make some money.
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Country: USA
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balataf
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Posted - 04/26/2011 : 3:30:16 PM
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It was proposed in Washington State to enact a special tax of #100 for each electric car, since their reductions in gas usage cuts into state tax revenues for road repair.
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Country: USA
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rooftopwilly
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Posted - 04/26/2011 : 8:10:01 PM
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Why does that NOT surprise me?
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"Green" projects
