[Terry Hancock]

https://www.ecowatch.com/koch-brothers-public-transit-2579462053.html

 

[GJETSON]

And they own one political party outright, and lease the other.

 

[GregBrew]

Of course they did.


These predators obviously don't care one whit about the planet or the "other people" living on it.

 

[Sean Nelson]

Oh boy, this really makes my blood boil. It's one thing to be self-serving, but denying basic mobility to the people who need it the most is vehemently inexcusable. And it's not as if the people who would benefit from a decent transit system are suddenly going to start buying cars, so it's really not even going to benefit the Kochs.

It's just totally reprehensible.

 

[Pvillerob]

That's our current, and worst, state of affairs since Reagan kicked the whole bullshirt ball rolling. Yet somehow, the people talking it in the balls the most are the same ones who keep voting against their own best interests! When the shell are they going to wake up and realize they're being dictated to by the Corporatocracy? And they don't give a flying duck about us.

 

[ElectricalEngineer]

Politics and general distrust aside, it seems odd to me that there is a big push for big mass transit construction from the nineteenth century right now just as self driving vehicles are poised to enter the market. In ten years our transportation technology will look a lot different so why spend billions on a lot of rail systems that won't be finished for 10-20 years so won't be open before the transition to the future has already occurred.

I would think it would make much sense to envision some future transit systems and proactively build a few of them so we can start experimenting with the future instead of ramping up hundreds of billions of dollars in backward looking rail infrastructure.

One thing for certain, no one would bother to invent anything with rails today if it didn't already exist. They are hideously inefficient from a time management and congestion point of view (asking people to stand and wait for a big people carrier to arrive and then dumping them all out together at the destination is the opposite of what you want.) And with their massive weight and need to have empty runs they are not particularly energy efficient either (have you ever heard Amtrak or your local subway brag about their effective miles per gallon? That gives a clue about who is winning that battle. )

I don't mind if you want to hate on the Koch brothers and it is likely they have some angle up their sleeves but the mass transit industrial complex has their lobbyists too and they are as motivated by self interest as the next group.

 

[quirkySquirt]

That's our current, and worst, state of affairs since Reagan kicked the whole bullshirt ball rolling. Yet somehow, the people talking it in the balls the most are the same ones who keep voting against their own best interests! When the shell are they going to wake up and realize they're being dictated to by the Corporatocracy? And they don't give a flying duck about us.

One of the arguments supporting the Electoral College was to combat this type of effect where a popular figure could somehow trick the majority somehow ("tyranny of the majority"). I had a real problem with the Electoral College after Trump was elected, but I still don't have a better solution to replace it with and so continue to accept it. The implementation of the college is very flawed, though, with the mix of all-or-nothing states and such. It's akin to RTS games for me and with those, I'm just pissy about the rules cause I lost and not always because of inherent flaws in the rules.

Politics and general distrust aside, it seems odd to me that there is a big push for big mass transit construction from the nineteenth century right now just as self driving vehicles are poised to enter the market. In ten years our transportation technology will look a lot different so why spend billions on a lot of rail systems that won't be finished for 10-20 years so won't be open before the transition to the future has already occurred.

I would think it would make much sense to envision some future transit systems and proactively build a few of them so we can start experimenting with the future instead of ramping up hundreds of billions of dollars in backward looking rail infrastructure.

One thing for certain, no one would bother to invent anything with rails today if it didn't already exist. They are hideously inefficient from a time management and congestion point of view (asking people to stand and wait for a big people carrier to arrive and then dumping them all out together at the destination is the opposite of what you want.) And with their massive weight and need to have empty runs they are not particularly energy efficient either (have you ever heard Amtrak or your local subway brag about their effective miles per gallon? That gives a clue about who is winning that battle. )

I don't mind if you want to hate on the Koch brothers and it is likely they have some angle up their sleeves but the mass transit industrial complex has their lobbyists too and they are as motivated by self interest as the next group.

During my schooling days, I was a bus rider. Hated it, but it was better than dealing with 2 jobs and a car loan for a $5000 beater to get to class. To this day, I still try to predict when a bus is trying to merge back into traffic and will gladly yield to them to make the commuters' and bus drivers' lives easier. Despite the YIELD sign on buses, 75% of the time no one yields to them.

I never understood why rail was the key when you could do just as well with more buses. Heck, there's a high speed rail project right now where I'm at that's way over budget and still will rely on public buses to carry commuters to/from the high speed rail. I figure why not just make more buses instead and pay for more enforcement of the bus lanes so anyone who dares enter the bus lane and prevents a bus from entering it (speed demons), fine those ar$eholes based on % of income. I think adding buses would be cheaper than continuing with high speed rail.

 

[Dimitrij]

Right in the beginning of the Ecowatch article ...

… The New York Times reported.

Does the NYT mention anywhere that the public transit projects are not some kind of an altruistic charity endeavor - it's big business, involving big money and big influence.

 

[Sean Nelson]

One thing for certain, no one would bother to invent anything with rails today if it didn't already exist. They are hideously inefficient from a time management and congestion point of view (asking people to stand and wait for a big people carrier to arrive and then dumping them all out together at the destination is the opposite of what you want.)

You are exactly wrong on this. A big people carrier that doesn't consume road space is exactly what you need to move people around in dense cities, and self-driving cars are the opposite of that. It doesn't matter whether cars drive themselves or not, they are still subject to this physical reality:

And note that the graphic doesn't show grade-separated rail transit, because it takes zero road space.

Self-driving cars will increase congestion because they will make more trips (some of them will be "deadhead" trips to position the vehicle for the next ride). Most large cities are already congested to the point where adding vehicle trips is very difficult - in fact this is why a lot of people take transit in the first place, at least in cities that have a decent transit system.

The only way to solve this problem is to be more efficient about the use of physical space in cities, and that means public transit.

 

[ElectricalEngineer]

Last month the New Yorker had a long story about the NY subway system and how they need billions for updating and extending it. They also mentioned as a side note that it costs 8X to build a mile of NYC subway than it cost to build a mile of Paris subway. They don't say why, but I can guess. They better get that money quick before it becomes obvious that it is a false path.

The futue 'bus and subway system' will be swams of self driving vans, though self driving Bolts would be fine to begin with, that pick you up where you are and drops you off where you want to be door to door and maybe makes a couple other stops along the way to grab or drop off some others going in a similar direction. Cheaper and much faster than today's buses. Crazy cheaper than today's subways. Within 15 years they will be pulling up the tracks on train and subway systems to repurpose them as right-of-ways for the self driving cars.

 

[ElectricalEngineer]

Sean Nelson,
I don't mean to say it will be one car per person. Our comments are coming out of order, but a swarm of 8 passenger self driving vans going to exactly the right places is more efficient than the mess we have now. By some estimates half of the traffic in cities is people looking for parking, be Iost or circling waiting to pick people up. I'll add in, being stuck behind a old style bus stopping every tenth of a mile and clogging things up.

 

[E Drivetrain Future]

I live between SF and SAC in a area with about 50,000 people. Fed money finances a public transit system consisting of huge heavy buses. There are very few passengers. It's gross waste and those heavy buses are tearing up neighborhood streets. We also have a situation with Gov. Brown's crazy train to nowhere costing 100 billion dollars.
If this is what you want, so be it!
The Koch Bros as gross polluters? Really? What happened to environmental laws during the last 10 years? Were theynall repealed and struck down by the courts?
Sounds like fake news by the Trump hater losers to me!

 

[DaV8or]

The only way to solve this problem is to be more efficient about the use of physical space in cities, and that means public transit.

There is another way, but people don't seem to favor it much and that is disperse the people out of the city. Stop forcing people to come into the city in the first place. For centuries this option just wasn't practical, but now with modern technology it certainly is. We don't have to be stacked like cord wood. We don't have to try navigate our ways through a sea of humanity like salmon swimming upstream. We could actually live healthier lives out amongst trees, grass and animals with simple commutes to our place of our employment.

There is a tremendous amount open, or underutilized land in America. I suggest we use it and stop trying to come up with new schemes and strategies to cram even more people into urban centers. I say skip the public transit with it's cattle cars. I say forget the freeways and rush hour where nobody actually rushes and it takes way more than an hour.

We shouldn't have to wait until we're retired to "live the good life".

 

[wesley]

Politics and general distrust aside, it seems odd to me that there is a big push for big mass transit construction from the nineteenth century right now just as self driving vehicles are poised to enter the market. In ten years our transportation technology will look a lot different so why spend billions on a lot of rail systems that won't be finished for 10-20 years so won't be open before the transition to the future has already occurred.

I would think it would make much sense to envision some future transit systems and proactively build a few of them so we can start experimenting with the future instead of ramping up hundreds of billions of dollars in backward looking rail infrastructure.

One thing for certain, no one would bother to invent anything with rails today if it didn't already exist. They are hideously inefficient from a time management and congestion point of view (asking people to stand and wait for a big people carrier to arrive and then dumping them all out together at the destination is the opposite of what you want.) And with their massive weight and need to have empty runs they are not particularly energy efficient either (have you ever heard Amtrak or your local subway brag about their effective miles per gallon? That gives a clue about who is winning that battle. )

I don't mind if you want to hate on the Koch brothers and it is likely they have some angle up their sleeves but the mass transit industrial complex has their lobbyists too and they are as motivated by self interest as the next group.

I realize the discussion is centering around the American circumstances, but the arguments laid out here seem a bit... weird for someone who's living on another continent.

For one thing, I've seen the subways and high-speed rails in my country (Korea) boasting about the efficiency low carbon footprint. And it is doing quite an effective job of transporting people in and out of the metropolis. I've been equally impressed with next-door country Japan's close-knit network of rails throughout the country that pretty much enable me to go anywhere. Korea used to follow the "roads first" infrastructure policy similar to the U.S. in the post-WWII economic development (likely not a coincidence), but it seems to be taking hints from Japan and fortifying the railway network more than ever.

Then when I go visit the States, I find the railway network being so "ineffective". Truly an awkward experience.

 

[shotel]

Then when I go visit the States, it find the railway network being so "ineffective". Truly an awkward experience.

70+ years ago, growing U.S. cities were moving towards the public mass transportation model much like that of Europe and Asia. As anyone who has ever spent time in Europe or Asia (or NYC) knows; the omnipresence of the rail systems means that most citizens don't require automobiles for their daily commutes. Also, cities in these countries evolved in such a way that made rail based public transportation convenient.

69 years ago, Big oil and the American auto industry made sure that same logical progression would not happen here. Thus today, each American belches 16.22 tons of CO2/year. The most per capita of all other "1st world" nations. Perhaps because we are also #2 , behind San Marino of all places, in number of road motor vehicles per capita.

These 1st world countries have the lowest per capita CO2 emmissions (in order, lowest first):

Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Slovenia, Spain, Portugal, Estonia, Malta, France, New Zealand, UK, Australia, Singapore, Croatia, Switzerland, Norway, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg. Humm. What do almost all of them have in common? Just can't quite put my finger on it. I know it starts with a T and rhymes with "brains".

@ElectricalEngineer seems to be channeling National City Lines in the pursuit of maintaining our addiction to cars. EE envisions even more cars per capita than we have now. Unless of course there is some government edict banning personal ownership of cars, which is what would have to happen. Otherwise AV mobility would require that these pipe-dream Johnny Cabs coexist with everyone's personal vehicles.

@DaV8or has identified a far more realistic solution. One that I think people will opt-into more and more over time.

 

[Dimitrij]

There is a tremendous amount open, or underutilized land in America. I suggest we use it and stop trying to come up with new schemes and strategies to cram even more people into urban centers. .

The USA is not the Soviet Union of yore, where the citizens had to ask permission to leave their town and to move to another one. Thankfully, Americans are free to move wherever they want, apart from the likes of Area 51 (which is for crash-landed aliens only).

To my knowledge, no-one "crams" anyone into anything. The reason for the "tremendous amount of open, or underutilized land" is that lot many folks chooseto pursue various opportunities in big cities and not in the boonies.

 

[Raymondjram]

Having been born and living in New York City for eleven years ( I walked over a mile to school and back every day for six years), I prefer public mass transportation for large cities, as over 70% of the NYC residents don't have private vehicles. I have seen traffic jams lasting hours, and have driven in some of them. For those cases, electric transportation is much more effective as it cost less per seat to carry millions daily. Subways have been excellent for over a hundred years. The next steps are electric buses, and electric taxis. Private transportation should be rentals or shared services.

There are those who cannot (or will not) walk and want their own vehicles. And so are those whose walking distance is over a mile and no public transport services are nearby. Now I live very close to most of my needed destinations, including a large shopping center, and walk as much as possible, but I do use my Equinox for travels over a mile which are few per week. Once a month I travel over six miles. My permanent solution was to move closer and reduce driving over 90%. Now I spend less energy for traveling than any Volt owner!

 

[cleavet]

I lived in the Washington DC area for five years and never drove into work once, thanks to a combination of bus and subway/light rail. If a viable public transit option existed near my current home I would jump on it in a second.

Btw, I currently work in software development for a passenger rail consulting firm. I am very skeptical about claims that self-driving cars will make traditional public transit obsolete. There is very little appreciation for how complex rail control systems can be, and what safety margins are required. I see something similar being required for self-driving autos.

 

[redpoint5]

This article is garbage. Why not quote the original from which it pulled a morsel of story?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/...latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

The NYT article mentions the reasons why one might oppose light rail, such as the $5,400,000,000 cost, or increasing sales tax 10% just to fund it. Increasing sales tax doesn't help poor people, neither does Gentrification. Then there is the fact that AVs will for sure kill off city busses, and much of light-rail as well. Why waste taxpayer money on a system you will dismantle in the next decade?

Finally, if public transit made economic sense, then why has 0% of them been able to fund themselves through collection of fares? They have always relied on charity in the form of imposing taxes on citizens.

I'm not an expert on Nashville's transportation, so I can't say one way or the other if the public transit is a good idea or not, but to support it without consideration of why it might be a bad idea is foolish.

These predators obviously don't care one whit about the planet or the "other people" living on it.

Oh boy, this really makes my blood boil. It's one thing to be self-serving, but denying basic mobility to the people who need it the most is vehemently inexcusable. And it's not as if the people who would benefit from a decent transit system are suddenly going to start buying cars, so it's really not even going to benefit the Kochs.

It's just totally reprehensible.

Have you spent time with the Koch brothers, or studied them at all? They may be dead wrong on their position of some issues, but to say they "don't care one wit about other people" is not only wrong, but mean-spirited.

My point is that painting people as sociopathic predators with evil intentions makes you look foolish when you haven't done any research, and couldn't be more wrong.

... and Sean- If you knew about the Koch brothers, you would know that lobbying against their interests is a fairly regular thing for them.

“Our decisions are based on what is most likely to help people improve their lives, regardless of the policy and its effect on our bottom line,” Koch Industries has opposed steel tariffs, for example, even though the company owns a steel mill in Arkansas

I realize the discussion is centering around the American circumstances, but the arguments laid out here seem a bit... weird for someone who's living on another continent.

For one thing, I've seen the subways and high-speed rails in my country (Korea) boasting about the efficiency low carbon footprint.

Sure, that might make sense for Korea, a country 1/3 the size of California, with extreme population density. I wouldn't even own a car if I lived in Korea.

Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Slovenia, Spain, Portugal, Estonia, Malta, France, New Zealand, UK, Australia, Singapore, Croatia, Switzerland, Norway, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg. Humm. What do almost all of them have in common? Just can't quite put my finger on it. I know it starts with a T and rhymes with "brains".

Tiny land area? Doesn't rhyme with brains though. You'll have to help me out.

I lived in the Washington DC area for five years and never drove into work once, thanks to a combination of bus and subway/light rail. If a viable public transit option existed near my current home I would jump on it in a second.

You just provided an anecdote for why rail/bus is outdated and will go away in the future.

Public transit takes you from where you don't live, to not quite where you want to go. So if there was a subway stop in front of where you live, and one right in front of where you need to commute to, you would take it. That exists for almost nobody, regardless of how well a system is designed.

 

[DaV8or]

The USA is not the Soviet Union of yore, where the citizens had to ask permission to leave their town and to move to another one. Thankfully, Americans are free to move wherever they want, apart from the likes of Area 51 (which is for crash-landed aliens only).

To my knowledge, no-one "crams" anyone into anything. The reason for the "tremendous amount of open, or underutilized land" is that lot many folks chooseto pursue various opportunities in big cities and not in the boonies.

And there you have identified the problem. People choose to go to the big city for the opportunity to make a lot of money. The opportunity to make a lot of money in the country side is little to none. It's simplistic to think that each of us can simply choose to live where we like, go there and thrive. For those still working, where the jobs are is where they will choose to go. You may have a choice of big cities, but that's likely your only choice. More often than not, economics dictate where we live.

My proposal is aimed more at the companies that provide the jobs, not the individual workers. Instead of spending trillions on money losing public transit, or draconian autonomous driving cab schemes that require everyone to get out of the way, how about we coerce, or incentivize those big employers to decentralize their operations? Instead of building one big campus where 5000 people have to come to work each day, all at the same time, how about they build 50 small office buildings spread around the country where only a 100 people have to come to work at the same time?

In that past, this wasn't practical, but today with the internet, other communications technologies and rapid shipping, it is. It's a bold idea that companies are afraid to try. Where would be that great big phallic, glass skyscraper to impress everyone? What if it's hard to transition and the competition gets ahead? What if? What if?

Anyhow, this is the real solution to urban congestion. At this point, if we can't change the way we work, I say the big companies that are at the root of this mess pay for all the new public transit systems and not the tax payer and let's face it, no public rail line in the world makes money. They are all subsidized by somebody. Most of the bus lines too.