MASS TRANSIT in America ?

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

A really simple and fast and efficient solution to the “energy problem”, “global warming”, “peak oil (if it is even true)”, etc. would be to use Mass Transit all across the USA and all of its suburbs. This can easily be done by an efficient high tech BUS transit system, can be managed by public, semi public or private companies of any kind, maybe even private companies performing some form of “competition”, such as to “improve”, said Mass Transit.

In reference to JHK and:

kunstler.com/blog/2010/07/my-tea-party.html

What I find incredible about JHK and others, is that they talk about trains, chu chu trains and all, and leave out the most important part: the last mile. How on earth will any possible passenger train have any passengers if they can’t get from their house to the station of departure, then from the station of arrival to destination ? Is that so hard to understand ? Every time people, governments, “researchers”, politicians and anyone else talk about “High Speed Trains, like in JAPAN”, how come they forget about THE LAST MILE ? How is that intelligent people are so clueless and stupid on these issues ? Has their brains been completely lobotomized ?

Even before talking about trains and high speed rail and any form of mass transit that can really work, that has any possibility, an efficient and complete BUS transit system must be first put in place. The trains would come after the BUS systems are in place.

  1. In order to use railroads you need the “last mile” connection, the connection that runs from your suburban home or inner city home to train station of departure A, and then from train station of arrival B, to your suburban or inner city office park. Having railroads with no extensive and complete BUS system is like having a pool with no water.

  2. While railroad transit cannot operate at all without the complementing BUS transit, BUS transit can operate perfectly without railroads.

  3. The huge massive infrastructure for BUS transit is already in place and has been built and in development for over fifty years and represents a multi-decade trillion dollar investment already financed and finished. No other nation on earth comes even close to the amount of roads and highways the USA has, it is one of the most massive resources of the USA and one of its most important overall assets: IT IS A LARGE CHUNK OF THE WEALTH OF AMERICA.
    (just compare it to the goat trails of Northern Italy, and most of the rest of the world including the west and JAPAN someone talked about above).

  4. The cost of creating a very efficient and complete BUS transit system, that can be run by any combination of local, state, federal or private actors, in any of hundreds of possible ways, by using internet calling systems, by using many different kinds of BUSES, high class, luxury etc. is so small, is absolutely tiny compared to the 2 trillion dollars the USA health care system costs, compared to the 500 billion dollars the USA defense costs, compared to the one trillion dollars the bank bailouts costs, etc. In fact with only 10 billion dollars you could supply the USA suburbs with about 10,000 BUSES, that would be 100 new BUS routes in the 100 most important metropolitan areas.

The cost is peanuts, the technology is very well known, the infrastructure is there, then why doesn’t anyone ever mention or think about this so simple solution to the energy - oil problem ? Because they have been brainwashed to think BUSES “are bad”, the neural circuits of 300 million americans have been hardwired in such a way so that even the simple concept, the simple idea of BUS transit gets erased into oblivion in their minds.

The solution has been staring in the face of America for 50 years, no one seems to see it. I can’t believe it.

Anyways, all of JHK’s railroad fantasies, and all of the fantasies everyone else has about railroads is just like “magical thinking”, and “wishing on a star”: it will never happen without a huge and efficient BUS transit system.

Unless you live and work exactly in the departure and arrival stations…

2

If there was any minimum interest at all in Mass Transit in America, it should have started long ago with Silicon Valley Startup companies devising systems that could track each “point to point” transfer of automobiles across the USA, the frequency of transfers, using databases, computers, software, using models that could follow the traffic, where there is more and less, how an imaginary BUS transit system could be applied for the maximum usage etc.

This stuff, with all of the “researchers”, NASA, Military Research, Supercomputers, etc. etc. would deliver results very quickly and could be applied very quickly.

The USA is designed from the outset, scientifically designed to discourage any form of Mass Transit: dispersed suburbs, haphazard subdivisons, extremely long and wide living arrangments covering over a hundred kilometers, all the car trips are “point to point” with no common ground with the other car trips, etc.

And most of all, a psychological conditioning against “walking in the suburbs”, as if it is a kind of “sin”, everything appears to be “too far”, it can’t be done, etc. Aside from the fact that if you even try to walk in any subdivision, be careful that suspicious people would be thinking that you are a “trouble maker”, “an alien”, etc.

The internet itself is modeled on packet switching which is a kind of advanced transit system: a BUS system could be modeled on it, if researchers in the USA would decide to finally do some research for the “common good”.

3

Do you mean it was scientifically designed after industry and ingenuity yielded an abundance of cheap energy and affordable, personal transportation in the form of the automobile? Also - if it truly was “scientifically” designed - how do you suppose “they” convinced everyone that suburb living was desirable and city living was not?

“Psychological conditioning” ? By whom? For what purpose? I grew up with a bicycle - and I certainly walked to my friends homes once I was old enough. Are you suggesting children in urban cities are encouraged to walk clear across town on their own at a tender age?

Invoking the always ominous and equally ambiguous “common good” to rationalize something. What you’re really saying is why don’t we either a) force scientists to do something one, or a few, people “believe” is in the best interests of everyone else (whether they agree or not - I mean, “we” know best) or b) rob citizens of their earnings (tax) to fund a study that, again, one or a few people “believe” is in the common good - whether we citizens actually “want” to obtain such information or not on our own.

Do you not think such lines of thought are dangerous in that they can justify anything - for anyone - at anytime?

4

It is worth pointing out that public transportation was, by-and-large destroyed in America because the auto companies bought the public transportation systems and then dismantled them.

As for “them” convincing people to move to suburbs, well, I hope you want to learn more about wine because you just ordered a white flight!

5

Oh - most certainly. They also lobbied hard to get the government to spend public money buildilng roads - everywhere. There was nothing “scientific” about it. Just motivated businessmen using opportunists in government willing to trample the individual by distorting the economic value of automobiles. It’s an old story.

I just don’t accept the conspiracy - boogieman version - that the suburbs were “scientifically” planned.

Yes yes. Again - no surprise there, and I’m not disagreeing. The suburbs offered those that wanted to hide behind their prejudice - an opportunity to do so. Even in Canada - where overt forms of racism aren’t obvious - the white flights took place around each of the major cities.

Prejudice and racism - while abhorrent - is an individuals perogative. Cheap fuel and afforable personal transportation (and government financed roadways) made exercising that perogative that much easier.

6

Oh yeah. The collapse of mass transit in America wasn’t a conspiracy anymore than a bunch of powerful businessmen and the politicians they own sitting down together and figuring out how to best dismantle something that was keeping certain markets if not closed, difficult to enter for them. The development of American-style suburbs within an area is primarily due to other factors involved in urban development. In America (and Canada, it would seem) racism would be a prime mover in terms of those “other factors”.

Not “scientifically” planned, no. But usually when someone says something like “scientifically planned” you know they are about to say something only a crackpot would believed.

7

The idea is that the way the USA appears now, it is as if it had been scientifically designed to kill any possible Mass Transit.

OK, BUSES can’t and will never work. Then why does everyone keep on talking about trains ? Why talk about High Speed Trains, or any train transit at all ? Why talk about subways ? Does the train station lie exactly at your house and all your various different destinations exactly at train stations ? How is it that people cannot understand that without some form of BUS transit to and from the train stations, trains will never take off and are totally useless ?

I find it startling how people cannot see something so obvious. This shows that people have some really serious problems in their brains, they are seriously brainwashed, conditioned, cannot see the most obvious thing. Yeah, lets all plan, invest and talk about passenger trains, the BUS systems that gets to and from the stations is irrelevant, is actually BAD, BUSES ARE BAD, BUT TRAINS ARE GOOD.

REALLY INSANE!

Then they keep on talking about Peak Oil, Global Warming, the Energy problems, etc.

If I mention then why not use Skyscrapers for High Density living where you have apartments, retail and offices all in the same building, so that you only need to use elevators, that is “Utopian”.

Then exactly what does JHK and environmentalists really propose, the dark ages, we should all live like the Amish ? 300 million Amishes and 7 billion Amishes worldwide ?

Anyways, even if BUSES (and consequently any form of passenger trains) can’t ever work in the USA, they could work greatly if not excellently in most of the rest of the world. Most of the world - Latin America, India, Europe, China have very high density towns and cities, often with a regular grid structure, and the distances are much shorter than those in the USA. Most of these towns and cities are a real perfect match for a very efficient high tech BUS transit system. But they all want to imitate America and use private cars. That is why I insist that the BUS systems should be first born in the USA, because then the rest of the world would follow, since they are all really too stupid to figure it out themselves.

8

I do agree that mass transit goes against some very heavily invested interests in America. That is the power of money and market forces.

It is like hydrogen fuel and other non-fossil fuel based “excuses” that get thrown around. Those technologies are a long way off, so investing in them is effectively an investment in our continued dependence on fossil fuel. Trains, subways, and light rail operate on a similar principle. Right now when cities are strapped for cash, there is no way they can afford that sort of investment in infrastructure. But buses, ewww. Those are for poor people, not a realistic option at all. If there was even an iota of political will, we could have a great bus system in ~3 months (see: Botega) for any major American city. But even with a heaping dose of political will, we won’t be seeing any lightrail systems for years, if ever.

A lot of people are fighting the wrong battle because they want what is best, not what is possible.

9

If you consider Passengers per Miles Per Gallon (PMPG) of BUSES and cars, things can get tricky fast. For example a BUS in the US can get 5 mpg and transport 40 people hence 200 PMPG. A european (supermini like opel corsa) diesel car can get 50 mpg with 4 people, hence also 200 PMPG. But if the BUS is half full, the BUS is half as efficient, it gets 100 PMPG against the car’s 200 PMPG.

True, from a simple PMPG point of view, BUSES are not so efficient as it would seem. According to number of passengers in both car and BUS, and MPG, cars could beat BUSES if the BUSES have too few passengers, and sometimes could beat BUSES by a large margin. BUT:

  1. You could use, invent, develop DIESEL - ELECTRIC HYBRID BUSES where the engine acts as an electric generator to more efficient electric motors (something like what the chevy volt will have) and I read on some sites, these BUSES can get 12 MPG.

  2. You can use Computers and the Internet, GPS, Mobile phone networks, and a host of technologies to increase the BUS occupancy levels. The routes could also be variable according to who is calling for the BUS from home through the Internet for example.

  3. To transport 40 people you just have the maintenance and insurance costs, parking spaces and road space of just one BUS versus those of 10 cars.

But in the end, where there is a will there is a way, in the USA there is no will, but at least don’t invest in any trains or high speed trains or anything else dealing with Mass Transit, because without a complete - efficient - high tech BUS transit system, it would be just a huge waste of money. Of course there are companies that would like to sponge off all that money even if the result is zero, so just be careful to not even talk about railroads unless you start out with a serious BUS transit system.

Another thing about Mass transit is that in large cities like NYC, Tokyo, etc. you are really forced by the physical constraints to use Mass Transit (in that case subways) because it would be physically impossible to transport so many people through such large - high density cities by cars. It is a case where push comes to shove, and you have no choice. But in all other cases, which is more than 90% of the cases in the USA, there is nothing like NYC, so push never comes to shove. Hell, not even in Europe where gasoline is 3 times the price of that in the USA, 10 dollars a gallon, is there any push for Mass Transit, go figure. Most of the EU invest very little in Mass Transit all in favor of private cars.

10

In response to the OP. Xunxian is right. A prime example is Australia which is a perfect mirror of the US.Similar economic status, low population density and sparse population centres. Australia struggles, like no country with it’s low population should, with co2 emissions. A prime factor in this is their rail system. A prroblem for the US that xunxian cites.