Passenger Trains > Freeway congestion costs billions....

And this administration's answer is to cut mass-transit funding and build more highways that will be clogged the day the ribbon's cut....

Study: Traffic costs billions of hours a year
Small, mid-size cities not immune to problem

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Los Angeles for years has had the nation's worst traffic jams, but these days even the streets and highways in small and medium cities from Brownsville, Texas, to Anchorage, Alaska, to Honolulu, Hawaii, are giving rush-hour drivers fits.

Snarled traffic is costing travelers in the 85 biggest U.S. cities a whopping 3.5 billion hours a year, up from 700 million two decades ago.

The problem worsened over the past two decades in small, medium and large cities, according to the Texas Transportation Institute's annual Urban Mobility Report released Tuesday. The institute, part of Texas A&M University, looked at data from 1982 to 2002.

Over that period, the study recorded the greatest leap in congestion in Dallas, from 13 hours annually in 1982 for the average peak-period traveler to 61 hours annually in 2002, and in Riverside, California, from nine hours annually per rush-hour traveler in 1982 to 57 hours on average in 2002.

The average urban traveler was stuck in road traffic 46 hours a year in 2002, a 187 percent increase over the 16 hours lost in 1982.

Even more startling is the decline of free-flowing traffic during rush hour. In 1982, 30 percent of urban highways and arteries were congested. Twenty years later, drivers were delayed on 67 percent of those roads.

Alan Pisarski, author of "Commuting in America," said that escaping to a small city no longer means escaping from traffic.

"You're beginning to see problems in places that you didn't know had problems, places you've never heard of," Pisarski said.

Even in cities with the least bad congestion -- Anchorage, Alaska, and Brownsville, Texas -- drivers lost five hours a year to traffic. In medium-sized cities such as Honolulu it was 18 hours.

Whole story:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/07/traffic.jams.ap/index.html

Must cut mass transit funding to pay for Bushies Iraq war and interest on the idiot's huge national debt, growing larger daily.

Say anything for regime change in the USA and he'll have Ridge announce a terror alert. Happens every time, doesn't it?

Such priorities.

Adding significantly more capacity to the transportation infrastructure for any mode of transportation requires long term spending and is going to require taking a lot of land out of it's current uses and devoting it to transportation. Since nimbys, environmentalists and a wide variety of other interest groups can effectively forestall those kinds of transitions, it's going to take a bipartisan consensus and a measure of discipline on the part of the general taxpaying public that no leader has been able to generate.

Politicians of all stripes have generally found it a lot easier to generate support from their constituencies by working against transportation projects or at least by supporting them in some other area.

While I dearly love desert tortoises, it seems odd that adding more trackage in an area that has an interstate being widened and existing trackage, should be so environmentally difficult. While that's probably a particularly distinct and unusual problem, any number of important projects (of many types) can be sidetracked or even derailed by the presence of endangered species, archaeological and aboriginal sites of cultural importance. A busway project in the San Fernando Valley was impacted by concerns over the impact on a large religious community. Cities are loath (at best) to remove property from the tax roles. Surface transport capacity increases require significant support in providing for grade separations, bridges, or underpasses along with simple space requirements. Adjacent communities are adamant about issues of noise and other perceived alterations to the environment. Advocates are wont to say the rails (the airports, the freeways, etc.) were there first but that isn't always the case and won't be the case to greatly expand services. Grade separated projects are costly. Above ground projects are subject to many of the pitfalls of surface projects. Subways are problematic in a variety of ways due to the complex geology of many areas.

Blaming the feds is convenient but while everybody wants federal money (which means they couldn't swing it locally) nobody wants federal taxes to go up or drastic changes in existing priorities. Blaming any single adminstration is transparent and petty. It's too easy for both parties to shrug it off.

And making ******** political comments about a subject one doesn't know about for the sake impressing us by looking like a bay area joke, errr pinkie, (maybe some day he'll grow up and gain the maturity to know when his blather is appropriate to a thread,)when the truth be told it was Governor Moonbeam (I guess I better not point out what political party he belonged to should I?) after all we can't whine about them just Republicans, and his appointment af Adrianna Gianturkey to please the environmentalists and their decisions to cut back or eliminate freeway construction (you know like completing the 710 to allow port truck traffic to avoid the downtown area) put the state way behind the power curve.

But coming up with Bay Bridge $$$, I guess the Feds and the rest of us taxpayers should be proud to pay for that. Why not raise the tolls to pay for it and/or re-install mass transit? That's a fine liberal idea tax it to the point most people can't use it and that will eliminate the congestion.

According to a report commissioned by the American Public Transportation Association, if Americans used public transportation at the same rate as Europeans-----for roughly 10% of their daily travel needs-----the U.S. would:
Reduce its dependence on imported oil by more than 40% or nearly the amount of oil we import from Saudi Arabia each year;

Save more energy every year than all the energy used by the U.S. petrochemical industry and nearly equal the energy used to produce food in the U.S.

Reduce CO pollution by three times the combined levels emitted by the four high polluting industries ( chemical manufacturing; oil and gas production; metals processing; and industrial use of coal).

Reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 25% of those directed under the Kyoto Agreement.

Reduce smog across the country by cutting NOx emissions by 35% of the combined NOx emissions from the four industries cited above, and cut VOC pollution by 84% of the combined VOC emissions from these four industries.

If Americans used public transportation at the same rate as Canadians-----for roughly 7% of their daily travel needs-----the U.S. would:
Reduce its oil dependence by an amount equal to more than a half year's oil imports from Saudi Arabia.

Save nearly the amount of energy used by the entire petrochemical industry every year.

Reduce CO pollution by twice the combined levels emitted by the four high polluting industries (chemical manufacturing; oil and gas production; metals processing: and VOC emissions from these industries.

Help prevent global warming by cutting CO2 emissions by amounts equal to nearly 20% of the CO2 emitted from fuel burned for residential uses or more than 20% of all CO2 emitted by commercial enterprises.


It's your choice as to which political party to criticize here. How many of us scream like stuck pigs whenever there's a modest tax increase proposed for light/commuter rail in our neighborhoods?

No political leadership from EITHER party. Entrenched highway, trucking, auto and fuel industry interests that like things just the way they are, thank you taxpayers. Extremely effective advertizing that brainwashes Americans into their pathological love of cars, trucks and the mythical "open" road as seen in commercials. Most Americans are very LAZY--walking to work, transit etc. is a no no for vast numbers of people. Exercise for many Americans means driving to the gym, pool, park, etc. Most Americans are affraid to mix with the kinds of people one finds using transit systems. Most American parents will drive their children to school, the gym, soccer, MacDonalds, etc. rather than have them walk. They are affraid of criminals, but the fact that one American in 88 will die in a traffic accident is of no consequence to them. Walking anywhere in newer parts of most cities is difficult or nearly impossible because of the way in which streets are designed and located. Most Americans have no transit systems to us. Most Americans really don't give a damn about these problems.

Must cut mass transit to pay for all the big pensions the towns, cities, counties, states, and government must pay their workers

hey parts545,

did you see that article on Enron-by-the-Bay (San Diego) in the NY Times?

av Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No political leadership from EITHER party.
> Entrenched highway, trucking, auto and fuel
> industry interests that like things just the way
> they are, thank you taxpayers. Extremely
> effective advertizing that brainwashes Americans
> into their pathological love of cars, trucks and
> the mythical "open" road as seen in commercials.
> Most Americans are very LAZY--walking to work,
> transit etc. is a no no for vast numbers of
> people. Exercise for many Americans means driving
> to the gym, pool, park, etc. Most Americans are
> affraid to mix with the kinds of people one finds
> using transit systems. Most American parents will
> drive their children to school, the gym, soccer,
> MacDonalds, etc. rather than have them walk. They
> are affraid of criminals, but the fact that one
> American in 88 will die in a traffic accident is
> of no consequence to them. Walking anywhere in
> newer parts of most cities is difficult or nearly
> impossible because of the way in which streets are
> designed and located. Most Americans have no
> transit systems to us. Most Americans really don't
> give a damn about these problems.


Yeah, it's sad people look at it that way and that's why they always called LA the Nations Parking lot. I've lived here in Southern Califronia most of my life and yeah, it's still a mess, and the mention on Riverside? I can attest to that taking an on time or early 3 down the San Bernadino Sub at 60-65 MPH and we're outrunning the monring rush hour on the 91 Freeway, so yeah, it's getting really bad. One good note is that So. Cal went smart when they built the Blue Line and was working hard to put transit systems in (Red Line Subway and Gold Line,) and adding Metrolink as the commuter railroad! If NIMBYS for one thing know the facts about stuff, they wouldn't be protesting about this or that coming to their neighborhood, but the other thing, it be great if our leaders in DC would quit saying things about our transportation problem and offer a solution by putting more money to Amtrak so they can help out on the intercity part of it because the airlines are on the brink of dissaster (again) and the highways have been known for congestion and all that! Oh yeah, what would happen in a natural dissaster? Metrolink proved after the Northridge Earthquake that rail is vital to the transportation system here in Southern Califronia!

karldotcom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> hey parts545,
>
> did you see that article on Enron-by-the-Bay (San
> Diego) in the NY Times?

I missed it
Do you have a link or a copy?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/07/national/07diego.html

Jeez louise, Ed. I missed the so-called joke to which you referred. Who are you peeved at anyway? I haven't seen one anti-Ahnult line in this thread. And I DON'T live in California.