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nothing wrong with public transport, so long as the the streets are safe, are they????
why do you think the french went to little cars insead of the metro? people talk about white flight alot but ignore the mean street factor which caused the flight.
when sheep are scared they huddle and run, the wolves think this is discrimination.
Location: Still in Portland, Oregon, for some reason
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Portland (or Moscow by the River as I call it) has been trying to force people out of their cars for the better part of 25 years now. They remove parking spaces and turn them into bike lanes, tweak traffic light timing to slow you to about 12 mph, give buses right of way and have even created full car lane-width bike lanes. Parking is $1.60 an hour on street (if you can find a space), fines are astronomical and the list goes on. And guess what? It hasn't worked. The only thing it has succeeded in doing is forcing people and businesses out of downtown and into the car-friendly suburbs. And because of that, the city is pretty much bankrupt and can't figure out why. This is terribly ironic given Metro has been trying to avoid just that with their mass transit master plan. Suburban towns like Beaverton and Hillsboro have wide boulevards with well-timed lights, cheap or completely free parking and none of the attitude that comes with downtown Portland. At the current rate, downtown Portland will be about as quiet in 20 years as downtown Detroit is today.
I crunched the numbers and if I followed what Metro wants me to do (take mass transit EVERYWHERE) it would have taken me about an hour and a half to go six miles to get to my haircut today mainly because I am a mile and a half walk from the nearest bus stop. I can (and did) drive all the way to my haircut in fifteen minutes. Why should I do something I don't want to do when it doesn't even benefit me? I'll keep driving my car, screw what they want me to do. People don't like to be told what to do nor do they like to be forced to do something they don't want to do. And if you discourage it, they'll simply find ways around it. Portland is a perfect example of this.
Last edited by rosecitywanderer; 03-27-2010 at 03:41 AM..
nothing wrong with public transport, so long as the the streets are safe, are they????
why do you think the french went to little cars insead of the metro? people talk about white flight alot but ignore the mean street factor which caused the flight.
when sheep are scared they huddle and run, the wolves think this is discrimination.
White frenchies use the Metro, this is a myth.
White flight is caused by fear, and that fear is largely unsubstantiated, but if you want to live your life afraid of the big bad criminals who kill and pillage at a rate the good old vikings would be proud at, be my guest, but you're living a lie.
Basically I like the idea, but I assume it is difficult to do in the US. US cities have been going the wrong way for so long, with all the suburbia it takes way too long to get anywhere by bike, let alone by foot.
I don't have a drivers license and thus only move to places which are connected to the railroad network. But that is also quite different in the States, your railroad network is very limited.
By the way, I guess there is a difference between saying that the government favors non-motorized transportation and saying that government no longer favors motorized over non-motorized transportation. But I assume it is deliberately distorted by the author of this thread.
“Some in the highway-supporters motorist groups have been concerned by your livability initiative,†said the moderator at the National Press Club event. “Is this an effort to make driving more torturous and to coerce people out of their cars?â€
“It is a way to coerce people out of their cars,†said LaHood.
Typical "I'm smarter than the masses" type of elite thinking.
I'm sure LaHood will have still have his fancy car.
A big advantage of walking and riding a bike is that people come into contact more. Cars lead to isolation and the roads and highways they drive on separate the various parts of a city. I watched a documentary on L.A. the other day where they showed huge highways that work like walls between neighborhoods. That is just very poor city planning leading to a lot of social problems.
What we need is a bureau of bovine and equine transportation, together with a bureau of bovine and equine scatology to deal with the by-products of non-motorized transportation.
I don't know if I understood this correctly, but I thought it was pretty funny.
Typical "I'm smarter than the masses" type of elite thinking.
It's more the "I am in power to do what I want to do rather than what the people want me to do" mentality. Fortunately, we have presidential elections once every four years, and legislative and judicial branches to check the dictatorial tendencies of any single official or group of officials.
Kind of OT, but I've always wondered why people get so angry/offended by the word elite. Frankly, I'd much rather have the elite in any given field have a strong deciding factor than Frank at the grocery store of Jenny the nurse.
It's more the "I am in power to do what I want to do rather than what the people want me to do" mentality. Fortunately, we have presidential elections once every four years, and legislative and judicial branches to check the dictatorial tendencies of any single official or group of officials.
Except that once legislation is passed, it's very tough to get rid of.
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