Fifty years since BART was organized. My grandfather was a high-ranking county official at the time and got one of the draft documents. As a teenager I would pore over the three-ring binder full of proposed train routes and elevation studies and station design concepts. Even then I knew it was a document of historical interest. Alas, my sentiments were not shared and after he died it disappeared.
Things disappear. But not people. More and more of them all the time, and in urban areas we need to get them out of their cars. The only good way to do this is provide alternatives that get them where they want to go when they want to get there, in a way that's somehow better than driving. A vastly expanded rail system is an answer, possibly the best answer if it's designed right.
Being as most Americans are disaffected not only with the President but with Congress and pretty much the whole shooting match right now, maybe we can hope for a change. A slow but sure sea change away from enabling the sport of kings* but instead, through a renewed sense of community, building up our country, maybe we can hope for that.
Yeah, and while we're dreaming, why not just go straight to anti-gravity.
8 comments:
That sport of kings article was fantastic. I think I'll send it to a few folks I know that are still gullible.
Indeed. That article pretty well lays out what many have been trying to say for 4 + years now. How anyone who truly believes in this country's possibilities can still support our, gulp, "president" is quite beyond me. That bogus Time magazine cover of a few years back said it all. Let's hope that Congress finds the spine to obstruct the Bush Regime more or less completely until he and his gang of sociopaths can be flushed out of there. Even if it would last to the end of his term with no resolution, I would love to see this presidency completely tied up in defending itself in front of the Supreme Court on all kinds of charges.
Always amazes me how Governments never have enough money for the important things likes schools and hospitals but always have enough to upgrade Nukes or send missiles that cost £1m a time into the sand.
I guess we all have our priorities wrong.
Have good coffee. People will ride if there's good coffee.
Well, surely the private sector can solve this problem? You think it's the answer to all others, after all.
The problems for public transport in cities built for the car are one, that the population is at low density, so it's not economical to run a decent service (so it's going to need heavy public subsidy), and two, people have to have cars for other purposes, so they don't rely on public transport.
You're right, doc, that only personal transport makes sense most places. This is why I secretly hope for higher oil prices driving a shift to alternates such as the so-called fuel cell, which may or may not be a scam, but it's something. But for concentrated areas trains makes sense, especially if you've ever crawled across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco with a million other people all going to more or less the same place at once. My philosophy has always been that if something is worth doing, it will be profitable, hence for a profit someone will do it. But this often breaks down when we're talking about important infrastructure, so we've always had a mixture of government programs and licensed monopolies. I don't know if there's money to be made in expanding BART or not. Probably not. But if doing so improves the environment (economic or otherwise), then to me it's not outside government's bailiwick.
Urban traffic gridlock is "simple" to cure - 1. create more self-contained town centers that eliminate commutes (though the flipside can be a trend toward suburban sprawl) 2. capitalize on the move toward at-home offices.
Long-range railroads definitely need to be revived in the U.S. for both freight and passengers. Sure, trucking provides a lot of jobs but it also pollutes a lot, and the trucking lobby has an insatiable appetite for expanding the system of environmentally destructive superhighways.
I think high-speed rail should be developed on the U.S. seaboards, especially if air travel service keeps plummeting.
Two keys to augment these plans would be to get America The Hyper to slow down a bit while preventing the stupid from breeding.
"especially if air travel service keeps plummeting."
Nice choice of words. :-)
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