How do you feel about the trolley, and mass transit in general?

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by jetgraphics

$25000 car kept for ten years = $6.85 / day

Your calculation missed the value of my time, and as we all know, time is money. I can spend 5 bucks a day and commute for 3 hours or spend 7 and commute for 1 hour. Two hours is worth a lot more than 2 bucks to me. What is two hours of your life worth?

[1AngryTaxPayer]

If you work an 8 hour day then have to add in 3 more for commute time what time is left every day to do anything besides get ready for work the next day? Not very much and it's sounds like the life of a worker Bee gathering pollen. You have to make time every day for yourself too. That would be that 2 hours of life staring at some other person on the rail.

[jetgraphics]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

If you work an 8 hour day then have to add in 3 more for commute time what time is left every day to do anything besides get ready for work the next day?

Originally Posted by Sassberto

Your calculation missed the value of my time

Good observations - right now - but for the "extra time" saved by your private automobile, you have to work 20 - 30 - 40 % more (or enjoy proportionally less of the fruits of your labor). Car ownership is often the second most expensive item of the family budget, after shelter. And due to inflated shelter costs, many have been forced 'farther out' and more distant from one's place of work.

On the other hand, "what if", thanks to your energy consumption reduction, and your scaled back workload, you only had to work 3 days out of the week, to meet your needs?

What if taking the train was a leisure activity, with access to entertainment, meal service, socializing, and recreation?

Or better yet, multiuse development and restructuring that reduces the distance between you and your necessities (and luxuries), and eliminating trips? (No more "Soccer Moms" shuttling children back and forth.)

And add parallel development with optimized rail transportation, linking concentrations of population with desirable destinations, and more people will have convenient access to the railways.

It is stipulated that under the current conditions, we are led to find an exact replacement for the family car. But these conditions were created by a flawed development strategy based on the assumption of cheap and plentiful petroleum and obligatory private vehicle operation. Though there seems to be no alternative but to subsidize the automobile, or any autonomous vehicle that replaces it, that conclusion is not supportable.

Things have changed and factors demand a different strategy.

• Fuel cost and scarcity.
• Population increase.
• Ever rising demand for food and necessities.

The "World of the Future" won't be huge expanses of multilane superhighways criss crossing mega cities (a la "Minority Report"). If anything, we have to rescue arable land destroyed by sprawl, suburbia, and pavement.

I strongly suspect that unless we drastically curb consumption of fuels, from whatever source, we will find ourselves caught in a trap. There is no logical, scientific, or moral reason to consume a disproportionate amount of irreplaceable resources, and deprive others when a more efficient alternative exists.

Keeping 'warm' by burning money is foolish. Fueling a wood stove with dollar bills is possible, but not practical. As fuel costs mount, and the gap widens between cost per passenger per distance for private vehicles versus electric rail mass transit, too many people will needlessly suffer.

If one had the opportunity to build a compact mega city (million occupants), from scratch, without a doubt, a 4 track wide (40 - 50 ft. corridor width) subway network would be more efficient, effective, and desirable than the 36 lane (360 ft. wide) superhighway gridlock needed to handle the requisite "car load".

[SEAandATL]

Speaking of trolley cops, here's an article from today's UT:

Security team keeps peace throughout trolley system