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Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,758,986 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Calix
Recently there have been a number of proposals to widen the 405 freeway in Southern California. Two counties, Orange and LA, one right, one left. A simple drive through both on the 405 or 5 shows stark differences and how ideology expresses itself in the real world. OC will widen the freeway, while adding a mix of rail infrastructure, LAC will not widen a critical freeway at all and only use rail in order to "punish into submission" anyone who disagrees with them, a common leftist tactic.
Let's be fair and honest about why there is such a divergence of opinion on rail vs freeway. While rail is a suitable alternative, all travel is dictated by pure government fiat, their time, their schedule. Rail without roads can not exist in isolation without a yielding of freedom. Left leaning communities welcome totalitarian control by government in every aspect of their lives. They prefer having controls dictated to them and others in a sort of a strongman dominance and forced conformance. Since totalitarian regimes most closely align with their particular world view, they welcome and embrace gov't control because they can force everyone around them to be just like them. This is why leftists love totalitarian regimes like Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, the former Soviet Union, etc. State control of their lives makes them feel secure.
Personal vehicles are a profound expression of individuality and freedom. It allows people to go where they want, when they want. A rail system can be shut down quite easily by government order, a strike, disaster, various systematic controls or failures. It is much harder to stop millions of people in millions of individual private conveyances on hundreds of thousands of roads both paved and unpaved. This lies at the heart of leftist hate against the automobile and why there is a religious devotion to mass transit, rail, etc as the "ONLY" solution. Eliminate the car, a symbol of freedom, replace with government control of movement, mass transit, and totalitarian control is achieved.
Case in point, Orange county will widen roads, improve infrastructure, in the goal of improving quality of life, while LA County will follow the usual leftist axiom of punish and force submission through suffering (no roads, sit in gridlock and suffer until you give up your car).
A mix of freeway and rail and other would be fine, but I've seen too much dogma from the "don't build infrastructure and reduce quality of life to punish people into submission" crowd to have much confidence that that the total opposition to freeway improvement is only symptomatic of their hate of freedom. A liberal mind is a mind filled with "limits", a colorless world where suffering must be spread around and there is a constant grind down in quality of life.
One only has to look at the cleanliness, infrastructure, and overall quality of life of most OC residents to see that its way of doing business surpasses much of the cesspool that is LA county. LA is fine if you are a wealthy liberal on the west side with plenty of money to insulate you, but compare the lives of the working class in LA vs OC to see the real measure of a community. Oh and yes, OCTA (Orange County Transit Agency - which runs the most of the mass transit services in OC) was rated as one of the nations best. Why, because OC has a healthy mix and appreciates freedom while left leaning LA county loves punishing people so they will "learn the error of their ways."
Did the following FACTS occur to anybody:
Los Angeles and LA county have a population of almost 10 million people and a density of around 9000 people per sq mile. It is really more when you consider the vast areas of LA that are uninhabited like the Angeles National Forest and Mt Wilson Such a project would require mass residential and commercial disruptions. You write like there is nothing adjacent to the freeway.
Orange County has a population of 3 million people and a density of about 3800 per sq mile. Land there is cheap and there probably is not much development adjacent to the freeway.
The next fact is that I find it a bit funny for someone to call Los Angles "anti freeway" when the place has 16 major freeways, the most freeway miles per person than any city except for Kansas City and Indianapolis and even with all this, they still spend half their lives stuck in traffic. If any city has a right to try something else, it is LA because only a fool thinks that doing the same thing over and over again will get you different results.
And if OC is so much better than LA is, why do you want to drive there so badly? Seems to me that you would wish to remain in OC and not go near big nasty Los Angeles. But if you want to go there, the freeway is there and open for you to use 24/7.
Then you say that rail is unreliable but that it would be hard to stop millions of people in cars. You better think again bud. Been there, done that. Lots of folks here were only too glad the subways were open when the freeways were shut for days by the flood 3 months ago.
I'll help you, roads allow individuals to travel when they want. Rail forces you on their schedule at their times and is very easy to control. It is much harder to control millions of people in millions of cars on millions of roads.
The road network is simply far more advanced and flexible than the rail network.
Rail isn't bad, but as an only option, it seriously limits freedom, surely you can see that concept.
Sort of if broadband internet was only available at few select locations rather than in every home.
Hope this helps.
Rail forces you onto a schedule? That is new to me In pretty much every major city I have been in the subways and light rails run every few minutes often 24 hours a day. Where have you been?
Last edited by Randomstudent; 12-20-2009 at 08:51 PM..
So, what exactly is practical about suburban sprawl? We keep building new sewer and utility lines everytime a sub goes up, leaving abandoned neighborhoods with all the infrastructure already there.
We sit in traffic for hours on end because millions of individuals crammed together and acting purely out of self interest doesn't work.
We tried the automobile experiment. It has failed.
Yes, rail is fine, it is hardly the ONLY solution, and the left wants it to be the only solution because they hate individual freedom, you are dependent on them. Dependency is a core tenant of leftist ideology.
"I was trying to be good and get the Eurostar [for my carbon footprint]," Ms. Siddiq said. "Flights tend to be delayed and a hassle ... And then it turns out it was Eurostar that was canceled."
Last week Eurostar train managers threatened to strike during the weekend over meal allowances before calling off the strike.
Unusually cold weather (that actually caused it to snow in the South of France, quite rare) caused the shutdown, I guess global warming caused that too. If you want it to snow, call the Goracle. I also appreciate that Ms Siddiq was trying to be "good" in hopes of getting forgiveness from the Goracle for her carbon "sins". Of course, his excellency flew home to his mansion in a private jet, not before he sold himself some carbon credits for his indulgence.
Rail is fine, but the automobile experiment hardly failed, it has allowed unparalleled freedom to roam the earth, much to the chagrin of leftists who prefer the proletariat bound to the land like serfs.
Do as I say, not as I do, is the clarion call of the left.
Rail is fine, but the automobile experiment hardly failed, it has allowed unparalleled freedom to roam the earth, much to the chagrin of leftists who prefer the proletariat bound to the land like serfs.
Do as I say, not as I do, is the clarion call of the left.
So?...The same is true with Highways. In fact It happened this weekend to boot.
Now I do not know about you but as someone who takes I-81 once in a while to go to Upstate New York being trapped in West Virginia during a blizzard does not exactly meet my definition of "unparalleled freedom to roam the earth."
Last edited by Randomstudent; 12-20-2009 at 09:31 PM..
Rail is fine, but the automobile experiment hardly failed, it has allowed unparalleled freedom to roam the earth, much to the chagrin of leftists who prefer the proletariat bound to the land like serfs.
Do as I say, not as I do, is the clarion call of the left.
Stop making this some liberal versus conservative thing. That's so played out.
It's about freedom - giving people the freedom of choice to choose to drive, to take a train, to walk, or to bike.
Your argument that when rail goes down it goes nowhere leads one to wonder whether you've ever encountered a major traffic jam. The same argument can be made for any transportation.
Freedom and sustainability. That's all this is about - not liberalism.
It's not as if my native Long Island didn't have similar areas. I equally couldn't tolerate them. Thanks to our free country I'm not forced to live there.
Calix are you trying to force everyone to live in OC? Or LA? What is your point again?
He just wanted an excuse to call Liberals a bunch of names and spew hatred at us, that's all.
Loved the video. Cool history -- I'd never heard of her before. Now I'll have to go look her up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KevK
Did the following FACTS occur to anybody:
Los Angeles and LA county have a population of almost 10 million people and a density of around 9000 people per sq mile. It is really more when you consider the vast areas of LA that are uninhabited like the Angeles National Forest and Mt Wilson Such a project would require mass residential and commercial disruptions. You write like there is nothing adjacent to the freeway.
Orange County has a population of 3 million people and a density of about 3800 per sq mile. Land there is cheap and there probably is not much development adjacent to the freeway.
The next fact is that I find it a bit funny for someone to call Los Angles "anti freeway" when the place has 16 major freeways, the most freeway miles per person than any city except for Kansas City and Indianapolis and even with all this, they still spend half their lives stuck in traffic. If any city has a right to try something else, it is LA because only a fool thinks that doing the same thing over and over again will get you different results.
And if OC is so much better than LA is, why do you want to drive there so badly? Seems to me that you would wish to remain in OC and not go near big nasty Los Angeles. But if you want to go there, the freeway is there and open for you to use 24/7.
Then you say that rail is unreliable but that it would be hard to stop millions of people in cars. You better think again bud. Been there, done that. Lots of folks here were only too glad the subways were open when the freeways were shut for days by the flood 3 months ago.
I'm curious why the OP would bash Venezuela as a "totalitarian" state, when Venezuela actually has a very high car ownership/access rate for its income level, and some of the cheapest gasoline in the world... I mean, if you love freeways, Caracas has a lot...
I sometimes wish my world could be as black-and-white as people like the OP. It would be so much easier to just categorize everybody as good or evil, right or wrong, liberal or conservative... Conventional movies would resonate so much more when the black knight gets beat by the white knight.
In the end, though, millions of people living in a region creates complications and people are trying to find solutions that work. Give them a break. I can assure you, your highways are not going anywhere. They just might get a little less crowded.
Calix your arguement is pure fallacy on your part. Where would the land come from to expand the 405 freeway in LA? You wouldn't want the Government to use "eminent domain" now would you just so you you will have a smoother trip?
I bet if you tripled the amount of lanes on the 405 in LA it would still be a parking lot most of the time. Get a grip !
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