Jay wrote:
>To hell with mass transit, let's build more roads! And bike paths! Mmm, smell
>that pork.
>
Well, "mass transit" is kinda like perpetual motion and eternal youth.
Looks good on paper, but just try to build it. In today's modern world,
people live and work is such spatially diverse locations that mass
transit would take people more time to get to work and home than they
would spend at work. Oh, it works where a century or more ago people
encircled a centralized workplace, and a subway/transit system could be
built from scratch. But that simply is not the case today, particularly
when you are talking about massive destruction of neighborhoods to even
make it possible. And then, what is the result? Well, they have 17.2
miles of subway from downtown Los Angeles to Hollyweird at a cost of
$5.2 billion. And that is not even counting the millions in feasibility
studies and economic losses to businesses enroute. Rail? Well, you
have the much-vaughted "Green Line" that took over a decade to build at
a cost of $718 million, and is laughingly referred to as the transit
line that runs from nowhere to nowhere. Literally. There is no rhyme
or reason for where it begins, or where it ends. That is probably why
no one really rides it. No, I fear that the only ones who want "mass
transit" are the consultants who do feasibility studies and bureaucrats
who run them. Neither of which ride them.
No, I suspect that the automobile is, as the commercial years ago said,
"It's not just a car, it's your freedom." And that is what the
automobile represents to America and its lifestyle.
Buster Evans
Anaheim, California
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