After the revolution I plan on using San Luis Obispo as my new Capital of El Centro de Kalifornia. Stretching from San Vincente Blvd at the base of the Pacific Palisades to my future summer Palace at San Simeon, encompassing the Santa Monica Mtns., Santa Lucia Range, San Rafael Mtns inland to as far as Taft, my benevolent dictatorship will rule in peace and prosperity. After the rotting corpses of any remaining lawyers are dealt with my first act will be to outlaw public transit. My second act will be to replace all these damn compound Spanish place names. Henceforth Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo will be simply known
as "Babs and Larry."
Regards from the exile HQ in Camarillo"
I remain your,
El Supremo de Nueva Kalifornia
8 comments:
Ban public transit? Are you nuts?
My spouse has vision problems that preclude driving, yet thanks to the local mass transit system, can get to work, shop, and other life essentials without my having to play chauffeur 24/7.
In fact, we chose our current residence in large part because of the availability of a decent mass transit service. I don't know what we'd do without it.
ride a bike it's healthier ;)
Sprezzatura asks an important question.
"Ban public transit? Are you nuts?
My spouse has vision problems that preclude driving, yet thanks to the local mass transit system, can get to work, shop, and other life essentials without my having to play chauffeur 24/7.
In fact, we chose our current residence in large part because of the availability of a decent mass transit service. I don't know what we'd do without it.
Sorry, I spoke in way too much shorthand. I am a strong advocate of needs based public transit. I fell that mobility is not only a right but ultimately an empowering public policy. When I say ban public transit it means the current system of entitlement for those who need it least in favor of mobility enhancing investments. Ultimately my banning of public transit will free up the funding necessary to provide your spouse with their basic human right to get about.
I guess the problem arises from the basic insanity of the US public transit perspective. No other greater good type activity is without gatekeeping or needs testing of som type. This will change. You are the people I had in mind when I used my absolute power to kill transit as we know it.
aaron, if you were responding to Sprezzatura, riding a bike is probably not an option. Cycling, especially in traffic, requires more or less the same vision as driving.
Thanks for the clarification, Robert. As a born-and-bred New Yorker who didn't own a car until well into her 30s, I tend to view mass transit as a positive, not a negative. However, since our move to California, it's been interesting to see how hard it is to come up with a mass transit system that works outside the Northeast.
And as for my personal situation: the Sprezz spouse is not legally blind, he just has issues related to depth perception and peripheral vision. Except for his driving thing, we have a completely normal life. I suspect he would not respond well to having to ride some kind of 'disabled people only' shortbus.
Not to get off-top but I peeked at iaff. The "top 5" list has been double posted (so much for those tech skills). The answers are complete non-answers. Of course.
Sprezz,
It really is a massive agitprop conspiracy. Even the NYC experience is shroulded in disinformation. Transit is a great deal for the user. In general they are asked to pay less than 1/5th the actual cost. When it's raining soup; grab a bucket. The typical Metrolink rider from Ventura County to Los Angeles makes ~$80,000/yr. Do they really need $8,000/yr in transit subsidy? Do they declare that $8,000 as income?
Even in the Northeast transit doesn't work anymore. It is kept on life support as a legacy product, nothing more even in NYC which stands head and shoulders above even Beantown and Philly as to transit usage. Did you know that when the NYCTA says 2/3rds of their costs are covered by fares they really mean that 2/3rds of their OPERATING costs are covered by fare INCLUDING bridge tolls? Did you know that routine mantainence is not considered an operating cost?
I can't do enough for your hubby. It is in my and our and his best interests. Thus I declare US transit as anti-mobility and worthy of cancellation as is.
I'll speak to the NYC area since that's what I know best. I could care less if the NYCTA isn't covering its costs. The population density in and around New York is such that mass transit is an absolute necessity. There's literally no place to put all the cars that would be required to move people around in transit's absence, and even if there were, they'd be stuck in 24/7 gridlock because there aren't enough roads, bridges, and tunnels already, and no more space to build more.
However, if you want to argue the whole thing is an unfair subsidy that ought to be revenue-neutral, I can see where you're coming from on that. Perhaps fares should be on a sliding scale, rather than artificially held low across the board to allow low-income riders access to transit.
To sum up, wanting to toss out the baby because you don't want to pay for the bathwater is not a good solution. There's simply no way that cities with high population density can survive without mass transit.
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