by Newfie » Tue 26 Feb 2008, 23:30:55
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('fireplaceguy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '.')..If capitalism really worked to make for efficiency then we would have a decent mass transit system in the US.
One of the things that makes me worry less about PO is that we have so much slop, inefficiency, in the system that we can get by with much less than we use now by doing simple things. That will flatten the curve of the collapse but not stop the collapse.
You're wrong. Dead wrong. Building mass transit is the PERFECT way to ADD slop and inefficiency into our system.
Mass transit works for Manhattan, and the majority of the millions who commute in daily for work. I use it whenever I'm there. It almost works in DC, and I use it about half the time there as well, though taxis or a car are necessary if you're there on business.
As to the rest of the country, here's an insight: I studied mass transit efficiency for a letter I wrote to the editor of the Denver Post years ago. At the time, I compared West Germany (before the wall fell) with the state of Colorado and found the following: West Germany's land area was fractionally smaller than Colorado's, yet there were 25 times more people in West Germany (and 1900 additional breweries!). Colorado's largest metropolitan area had under 2 million people, where there were several cities in West Germany that surpassed that rather handily...
Population density equates directly to the use and efficiency of mass transit. This is the overriding difference in the efficiency of mass transit in European countries vs. the US. Culture has nothing to do with it. If the Germans had been transplanted here 300 years ago, they would have spread out just as we did (after all, our population largely came from countries with smaller land areas and high density). Mass transit in North America would be just as big a joke as it is today, only we'd be telling it in a different language.
Capitalists (who risk their own money) would never be stupid enough to build expensive transit infrastructure where the customer base isn't adequate to support it. So, capitalism actually makes for very high efficiency. How? By not squandering money and vast natural resources on useless projects. (These gov't morons can't run a transit bus at break-even yet you want them take over health care? Fool!)
Your thinking creates inefficiencies! One of my great worries is this: Just as gloabl energy production is peaking, so are the stifling inefficiencies of social(ist) programs (such as mass transit) and the suffocating noose of regulation. As energy becomes more and more dear, an increasing percentage of the jobs that remain will be carried out over the phone and the web. The rest of us will be gardening...
Who needs light rail for that???
Well....not to screw with your head but.............I completely agree with you, and I work in transit. Well maybe not completely, for I have (of recent) come to the conclusion that mass transit is part of the problem.
You are absolutely right that mass transit does not make sense in the hinterlands (see I know German too.) Nor are the systems in NY or DC are "efficient." They are run by big, ugly, nasty, inefficient bureaucratic, political, make work, political, .............ARG!!! You get the idea. They could be SOOOOO much MORE efficient than they are. That was my point, not to pick on mass transit per se but that humans, as a group, are pretty inefficient. To make Rand's point, it is the few that lead and drag the rest along.
So why is mass transit part of the problem? Because both NYC and DC and, and, and will not be sustainable Post Peak. Others will argue that, right now, Manhattan is very energy efficient, in comparison to the rest of the country. At some point in the decline the equation will change. McMansion has some yard to grow vegetables, and a roof to collect water, and sunshine. The poor slob in the tenement will be almost totally without resources. We don't need to cram more poor slobs into that box. But these are long range worries, not for my lifetime, I hope.
Now, if you want to bash mass transit why not start a separate thread on that topic?
