GM, Public Transportation, and Karma

Corporatism at its finest. Who cares what's good for the country, when it's good for GM?

Firestone was in on it, too, with their "Rails to Rubber" scam.

Good riddance, GM. 'Carma', indeed.

 

Ahh...Capitalism. Creating wealth by screwing everyone else. Isn't it fantastic? :madgrin:

 

Isn't that what the American Dream's all about? The land of opportunity and prosperity we see on TV?

 

I don't feel at all "screwed" because I own a car. But if you feel that way, when will you be selling yours?

On the other hand, most of the tax-payer supported public transit I see (outside downtown core) runs overly large buses with about a 5% passenger load on inconvenient, poorly connected routes. That does make me feel screwed.

I'll feel even more screwed after they spend billions (if not trillions) on dubious high speed rail projects that are somehow claimed to "reduce congestion" despite the fact that they are inter-city (not intra-city) and in any case will connect the same cities already served by cheap, flexible air travel provided by private companies.

There's a case to be made for public transit, but thus far government in most cities (save NY and SF) has yet to figure it out.

 

Ah, but if you had watched the video in the OP, you should have noted that the trolley systems that GM, et. al. bought up and dismantled were private, profitable businesses until they were taken over and crippled. So you did get screwed. Because they were replaced by the overly large buses that run inconvenient, poorly connected routes.

 

I'm seeing the start of a resurgence in light rail here in Adelaide. Miles of tram tracks were pulled up in the late 50s and replaced with buses. It was the growth of Adelaide which was the excuse for pulling out the tracks and using buses in Adelaide which is an Auto industry town as both GM-H and Chrysler built cars here then.
Now, after Mitsubishi who took over the Chrysler factory left town, we have only GM-H.
A single route duel line exists in Adelaide which is a very popular way to travel between Adelaide and the seaside location of Glenelg. This route has recently been extended from the centre of Adelaide city to the Adelaide railway station on the edge of the city and will now be extended to the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, 3km out of Adelaide and eventually to Port Adelaide about 10km out of Adelaide. These extensions I hope are just the start of a light rail revolution for Adelaide. Hopefully Adelaide will again have an extensive light rail system.

Oh another thing we have is a guided busway which works very well. The busway has minimal impact on the environment but allows buses to travel at high speed along a narrow remote corridor before the buses leave the corridor to work like conventional buses in the city and the northeastern suburbs.

 

The reason NYC and SF have viable public transportation system in place now,, is that they made good (mostly) civic choices to INVEST public money in their future,, the costs of which were seen at the time,, the benefits were further down the road.

The problem with folks who think (and act) like you,, is you have no vision of the future, unless it benefits you personally. You have little regard for the greater public good.

Minneapolis invested in a light rail mass transit project,, over the vocal objections from folks who think like yourself and it is changing the civic landscape for the better.

Seattle,, after many years of fighting the naysayers, is set to open a light rail system in the coming months. It is arguably not perfect,, but it is changing the landscape as well.

Vancouver BC built the skytrain,, and is building a series of extensions, all of which are paying big dividends in the overall livability of the city.

The answer that folks like you always suggest is that all we need is more lanes for traffic,, never understanding that counterintuitively, more lanes don't ease congestion and speed commute times,, they add to it. Look at any "belt way" designed to route traffic around the center of metro areas,,, within a few years,, these belt ways are more congested than the original road they were designed to ease the congestion of! I-405 around Seattle,,, the belt way around Portland OR whose number I forget,,, Route 128- I-495? in Boston,,, name a place and I'll show you congestion. Even Denver tried it with a toll road,, miles away from the down town core,,, and guess what is happening?

Icarus

 

Yes, skytrain makes a big difference. The sad irony is that it follows the very same routes as the previous streetcars that were destroyed decades ago, only at far greater cost, and not as extensively. In many ways, the "old" system was better. And I bet it would be a huge boon to tourism, much like cable cars in San Francisco.

 

That's not what I'm arguing at all. I think the answer lies in:
- creating more incentives and better technologies to telecommute
- better bus lines (with fewer wasted routes), smaller buses running at higher capacity
- perhaps charging time of day fees for road use
- and concentrated trolley lines or bus lines within a city center

All of course, as much privately funded as possible.

I much prefer bus to rail because it is much more flexible, lower cost, quicker to change routes & expand / contract as needed and requires less infrastructure investment.

 

Fair enough - as long as private companies run them and they don't require tax dollars, I'm fine with that. When the government runs these things, we get the likes of Amtrak, which, with massive subsidies is still not self-sustaining.

 

Why does everyone pick on Amtrak? Why must Amtrak be self-sustaining when no other form of transportation in America is? Federal, state, and local government pour billions of dollars into highways and roads that return absolutely no revenue back to these governments.

 

Praise be the day,,, something we (sorta) agree on.

I agree that buses are way less expensive than light rail. The real issue is that privatization of transit is crazy. The profitable routes will be scooped up as cash cows,, leaving those in fringe areas out in the cold. Secondly,, the real problem with buses is that they run in traffic,, and as such, they can't always (or seldom can) be relied on to get you there on time. If they are not reliable,, then people won't use them. If you could get transit only lanes on major arterials then indeed they can be viable. The reason we have go to light rail/commuter rail is that it can run on dedicated right of way.

Public transit doesn't have to "make money" There is such a thing as the greater pubic good. If nothing else,, any subsidy that reduces the amount of fuel burned net/net contributes to the greater public good.

Icarus

 

We are now in Peak Everything (oil, water, food, transportation). We are 100 years behind Europe in transportation. This is a golden opportunity to cost effectively and energy efficiently emphasize walking & bicycle routes, electric & high speed rail - all based on sustainable-renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, small hydro, efficiency & conservation). This is what Germany is doing, we can do it more efficiently.

 

Tell me which form of transportation is NOT subsidized?

Private autos: road construction, law enforcement, wars to protect oil, medical costs of air pollution, etc

Buslines: see above

Airlines: airport construction, wars to protect oil, FAA

Sea Shipping: US Navy, build ports, wars to protect oil

Did I mention "wars to protect oil?"

Anything that reduces air pollution and terrorist oil SHOULD be subsidized!

 

Private companies already run a lot of the mass transit--transportation contractors who run the buses and take care of the maintenance for various metro areas. But you really can't rely on them to pick the routes and such (that must be managed by the communities.)

I get a kick out of folks who think privatizing everything is the answer, especially basic infrastructure. Rural electrification, basic phone service for everyone, roads, etc. would not happen in a private system, they are the first things that would be cut. (See high speed internet today...there is a reason that it is limited.) There are similar problems when it comes to education: Contrast the pre-Civil War conservative South with the North, not only did the South keep about 40% of its population intentionally uneducated and in servitude by law, but the free population also had a high illiteracy rate. (And public universities in the South were part of Reconstruction.) And health care is another real beauty. This "privatized" health care system we've had has been spectacular failure in many ways (and definitely hurting our competitiveness), the least efficient in the world by many measures. Look at what a great job our private enterprise has done over the last decade...despite shifting more and more of what should be their costs onto the taxpayer/Uncle Sam.

Fact is that our bus services in this region tend to serve many who can't really afford/manage a vehicle. This is primarily subsidized and always deficient in funding. They don't run empty around here, complaints are that they are too full and too few of them.

 

I believe that the lesson we are finally taking in is bigger than the individual issues involving GM-AIG-and Haliburton or what they have done in the past--incredible as it may be.

The result---of our lesson from the recent economic meltdown is the realization that cannibalistic capitalism in the US is over---
Gordon Gecko is dead----
Corporations must now become responsible citizens or they will fail---ultimately.

It is the purposeful pullback of the 70% of gnp provided by the American consumer---that will change the business world.

Just my thoughts
Froley

 

LOL. Well anyway, we don't agree totally. The great thing about private companies is that they won't run fringe routes. Those routes are neither economically nor environmentally viable - at least from my observation of the nearly empty buses I see running to and from the fringes. Downtown buses are always packed. The fringe commuters can be encouraged to drive to the nearest bus depot. I don't think the greater good is served at all by running empty buses day and night to serve a nearly non-existent ridership population on a city's fringes.

In any case, I agree there is the issue of not having dedicated right of way for buses. Then again, they could always convert the carpool lanes to bus only lanes (even if only during limited hours). In my opinion, most of the carpool lane use is incidental use (i.e., people taking their kids someplace, etc), not planned carpools, so the carpool lanes really do nothing to reduce traffic volumes, save fuel, or reduce pollution.

 

Now you are confusing social policy with transportation policy. If your objective is to provide a socialized transit system that serves everyone in a community, you are talking about a much different system than a transport system designed to be quick, efficient, cost effective and environmentally sound.

 

I agree - it should all be self sustaining. We should privatize highways too. Let contractors absorb the cost (and risk) of building them and let them recoup the costs through user fees. As long as the contracts are well-structured and the companies answerable to the public, I think this is the best solution. And the roads might even generate some public revenue as part of the user fee could go back to the state.