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Old 03-03-2013, 02:17 PM
 
4,019 posts, read 3,931,048 times
Reputation: 2938

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Quote:
Originally Posted by weteath View Post
Hm, I'm not familiar with the screeching noise, but waiting on a subway in a tunnel, I thought the sound was kind of cool. Like how if you have a powerful guitar amp and turn it up loud, the volume becomes a physical force. Cool in that kind of perspective.


using the NY subway a lot can actually cause hearing loss for frequent riders, since almost all of it is underground. people who go to a lot of indoor rock concerts experience a similar problem over time in terms of potential hearing loss (the outdoor concerts probably aren't so bad).


Just to drive home the point, though, a bunch of academics have verified that, yes, the subways are very loud. A survey conducted last month by a bunch of students at the University of Washington and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health founds that subway rides expose us all to “high enough (volumes) to potentially increase the risk of noise induced hearing loss.”

The researchers warned that their findings were alarming. “At some of the highest noise levels we obtained, 102.1 dBA on the subway platforms, as little as two minutes of exposure per day would be expected to cause hearing loss in some people with frequent ridership...- See more at: The noisy, noisy subways :: Second Ave. Sagas
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Old 03-03-2013, 02:31 PM
 
Location: Ypsilanti
389 posts, read 467,444 times
Reputation: 203
Quote:
Originally Posted by cisco kid View Post
using the NY subway a lot can actually cause hearing loss for frequent riders, since almost all of it is underground. people who go to a lot of indoor rock concerts experience a similar problem over time in terms of potential hearing loss (the outdoor concerts probably aren't so bad).


Just to drive home the point, though, a bunch of academics have verified that, yes, the subways are very loud. A survey conducted last month by a bunch of students at the University of Washington and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health founds that subway rides expose us all to “high enough (volumes) to potentially increase the risk of noise induced hearing loss.”

The researchers warned that their findings were alarming. “At some of the highest noise levels we obtained, 102.1 dBA on the subway platforms, as little as two minutes of exposure per day would be expected to cause hearing loss in some people with frequent ridership...- See more at: The noisy, noisy subways :: Second Ave. Sagas
That doesn't surprise me, I'll have to be careful with my hearing. My ears are real sensitive to low frequencies, when I do hear screeching I hate it, so I hope to not come across subway screeching too much.
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Old 03-03-2013, 04:24 PM
 
Location: Berwick, Penna.
16,214 posts, read 11,252,894 times
Reputation: 20827
One point that has not been raised in this discussion so far is that Americans have been adapting to the new energy reailities, and will continue to do so. It is mostly a cadre of zealots, almost all of them young, many not raised in a tested democracy, and often not famiiar with the travel and (freight) distribution systems in North America (which differs considerably from Europe) who continue to insist that Big Brother has a better way.

When I entered the full-time working world in 1972, the vast majority of us travelled in full-size sedans which, even with less-sophisiticated emission controls, got about 15-18 MPG tops. The economy of VW "beetle" was well-demonstrated and very popular with those willing to buck the trend, but the Japanese auto industry was just getting started, and the opinion held of it in Detroit (as popularzed in Arthur Haiiley's novel Wheels) was, "baliing wire and chewing gum".

The concrete was just being cured on some of the last links in the Interstate Sysytem, and a fast-growing and somewhat-romaniticized trucking industry was taking full advantage of it. Manufactured and perishable freight desterted the rails in the course of a few short years, and the lost revenue caused what was left to fall into disrepair due to deferred maintenance

Ironically, it was the "oil shocks" of 1973 and 1979 which very quickly convinced those of us in both the affected industries and the academc world that the quantum shifts in the energy realities and the transport markets affected by them that the process could not contnue in the directions initiated within those years for very long, and it was a move toward deregulation in all sectors of surface transport (orchestrated primarily by a West Virginia Democratic Congressman named Harley Staggers) which set things in motion to restore a balance determined more by supply, demand and actual cost of service than by regulatory fiat.

The process of re-orienting both our personal and supply-chain systems has been under way since that time, and really kicked into high gear following another steep rise in oil prices in 2005 -- further aggravatrd by other factors such as the peaking of Alaskan production, a series of disturbances that began with Hurricane Katrina, and an expansion of global-market alternatives stemming from the North Sea discoveries, the weaking of OPEC, and the disintegration of the Soviet Bloc.

And it should be recognized that the shift in market conditions has a stronger effect on the "unattached" adult than the family unit -- traditional or otherwise. Twenty years ago I lived in a manufacturing community of 25000, where alternatives to auto travel were limited to about eight daily Greyhound and Trailways departures (down from about thrity in 1965, and with much of the direct service reduced or eliminated). Today, I spend most of my time, including some wekends, in a metro area of about 1 million, and can travel into New York (and all of the Corridor Cities accessible fom there) with only four miles of driving (one way), and frequent departures. And the options are expanding -- without much "help" from those who think they have a better way based on coercion.

And lastly, it should be noted that even smaller personal vehicles -- some of them not dependent on fossil fuel at all -- continue to evolve. The real problem is that those portions of our trasnport system involving the handling of heavy and or infrequently-shipped goods can't be as easily adapted. for reasons i'd be willing to address in a subsequent post.

Last edited by 2nd trick op; 03-03-2013 at 05:37 PM..
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Old 03-03-2013, 06:12 PM
 
Location: Hong Kong
1,329 posts, read 1,094,886 times
Reputation: 217
NYC must have old and/or poorly designed equipment.

It need not be like that
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Old 03-03-2013, 08:46 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,244,119 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2nd trick op View Post
One point that has not been raised in this discussion so far is that [U]Americans have been adapting to the new energy reailities, and will continue to do so.[/u] It is mostly a cadre of zealots, almost all of them young, many not raised in a tested democracy, and often not famiiar with the travel and (freight) distribution systems in North America (which differs considerably from Europe) who continue to insist that Big Brother has a better way.

When I entered the full-time working world in 1972, the vast majority of us travelled in full-size sedans which, even with less-sophisiticated emission controls, got about 15-18 MPG tops. The economy of VW "beetle" was well-demonstrated and very popular with those willing to buck the trend, but the Japanese auto industry was just getting started, and the opinion held of it in Detroit (as popularzed in Arthur Haiiley's novel Wheels) was, "baliing wire and chewing gum".

The concrete was just being cured on some of the last links in the Interstate Sysytem, and a fast-growing and somewhat-romaniticized trucking industry was taking full advantage of it. Manufactured and perishable freight desterted the rails in the course of a few short years, and the lost revenue caused what was left to fall into disrepair due to deferred maintenance

Ironically, it was the "oil shocks" of 1973 and 1979 which very quickly convinced those of us in both the affected industries and the academc world that the quantum shifts in the energy realities and the transport markets affected by them that the process could not contnue in the directions initiated within those years for very long, and it was a move toward deregulation in all sectors of surface transport (orchestrated primarily by a West Virginia Democratic Congressman named Harley Staggers) which set things in motion to restore a balance determined more by supply, demand and actual cost of service than by regulatory fiat.

The process of re-orienting both our personal and supply-chain systems has been under way since that time, and really kicked into high gear following another steep rise in oil prices in 2005 -- further aggravatrd by other factors such as the peaking of Alaskan production, a series of disturbances that began with Hurricane Katrina, and an expansion of global-market alternatives stemming from the North Sea discoveries, the weaking of OPEC, and the disintegration of the Soviet Bloc.

And it should be recognized that the shift in market conditions has a stronger effect on the "unattached" adult than the family unit -- traditional or otherwise. Twenty years ago I lived in a manufacturing community of 25000, where alternatives to auto travel were limited to about eight daily Greyhound and Trailways departures (down from about thrity in 1965, and with much of the direct service reduced or eliminated). Today, I spend most of my time, including some wekends, in a metro area of about 1 million, and can travel into New York (and all of the Corridor Cities accessible fom there) with only four miles of driving (one way), and frequent departures. And the options are expanding -- without much "help" from those who think they have a better way based on coercion.

And lastly, it should be noted that even smaller personal vehicles -- some of them not dependent on fossil fuel at all -- continue to evolve. The real problem is that those portions of our trasnport system involving the handling of heavy and or infrequently-shipped goods can't be as easily adapted. for reasons i'd be willing to address in a subsequent post.
Exactly! Never underestimate the ability of human beings to ADAPT!

I'm probably as old, if not older than you, I've seen some of these changes, too. No one would have believed back in the 1970s that the Soviet Union would dissolve, and the countries of the old SU would disintegrate so badly. They were going to bury us, and it turned out they were a paper tiger at best.

But enough politics. I especially agree with the bolds. But you know what? Even if a small personal non-polluting vehicle were to come out tomorrow, some of these folks would still be singing the same song.
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Old 03-03-2013, 08:51 PM
 
Location: Hong Kong
1,329 posts, read 1,094,886 times
Reputation: 217
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana View Post
Exactly! Never underestimate the ability of human beings to ADAPT!

I'm probably as old, if not older than you, I've seen some of these changes, too. No one would have believed back in the 1970s that the Soviet Union would dissolve, and the countries of the old SU would disintegrate so badly. They were going to bury us, and it turned out they were a paper tiger at best.

But enough politics. I especially agree with the bolds. But you know what? Even if a small personal non-polluting vehicle were to come out tomorrow, some of these folks would still be singing the same song.
Few people believe in 2013 that the United States will dissolve, and it car-dependent suburban living arrangement will shrivel up an die within only a few years - But indeed, we may see that.

If you want to laugh at that, you need to do a YouTube search on Dimitri Orlov:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH65LtofwZQ
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Old 03-03-2013, 09:13 PM
 
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
7,138 posts, read 10,972,934 times
Reputation: 7807
Quote:
Originally Posted by cisco kid View Post
same here. I prefer walking and biking because I want to be out in the sunshine and not feeling trapped in a dark tunnel. for longer distances I would take a streetcar if possible. I like the open-air type that used to be popular in cities in the early 20th century. those are really fun and retro. if they brought those back I bet they would be very popular, not just as a tourist attraction but as a regular form of urban transit. people can't resist going for a ride whenever they see one.
Actually open air streetcars were more 19th century then 20th century. That was in the days when people were used to riding in open horse-drawn wagons. The one in your picture is a replica of an old tourist car. It was a special car to give tours of the city. Even by the early 1900s people wanted to ride inside heated cars. I don't think open are cars would be very popular in most places. Except maybe very warm climates.
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Old 03-03-2013, 09:24 PM
 
4,019 posts, read 3,931,048 times
Reputation: 2938
Quote:
Originally Posted by KaaBoom View Post
Actually open air streetcars were more 19th century then 20th century. That was in the days when people were used to riding in open horse-drawn wagons. The one in your picture is a replica of an old tourist car. It was a special car to give tours of the city. Even by the early 1900s people wanted to ride inside heated cars. I don't think open are cars would be very popular in most places. Except maybe very warm climates.

nonsense. the US isn't Siberia. most weather in the US is pretty mild, so open air cars would
indeed work in most of the US. maybe not in Alaska, but in almost every other state it would be fine.
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Old 03-03-2013, 09:41 PM
 
195 posts, read 282,481 times
Reputation: 254
Quote:
Originally Posted by cisco kid View Post
nonsense. the US isn't Siberia. most weather in the US is pretty mild, so open air cars would
indeed work in most of the US. maybe not in Alaska, but in almost every other state it would be fine.
Yeah try telling that to people in Minneapolis in the winter or Phoenix in the summer.
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Old 03-03-2013, 10:26 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,244,119 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by apm193 View Post
Yeah try telling that to people in Minneapolis in the winter or Phoenix in the summer.
Or even Denver, or Pittsburgh (two places I have lived). Heck, even DC is cold in winter and hotter than Hades in summer.
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