Ford's top economist Emily Kolinski Morris said October sales signal a real underlying demand for new vehicles after the distorting effects of the clunkers program. The economy, she said, is "in transition from recession to recovery.
The talking head from GM on CNBS discussed how GM currently has 4K of incentives baked in.
Between that and the health care and pension liabilities, there is no way that the taxpayer 'investment' in GM could ever be anything except just another incredibly inefficient form of welfare.
Thank you Cinco: I like to look for the not so obvious in reporting numbers and thats the only thing I could think of. Of course it is speculation on my part. I'm sure autos are being sold, but with other dismal numbers out there, in particular UE, I have a little trouble swallowing even this modest number totally whole.
Ford's top economist Emily Kolinski Morris said October sales signal a real underlying demand for new vehicles after the distorting effects of the clunkers program.
Well, yeah. The "real underlying demand" is ... about 10.5 million vehicles per year. Or about 40% less than what the Big 3 have planned, built, and staffed for.
Somehow, I don't think that's the message Ms. Morris and her clan were intending to propagate.
Well, yeah. The "real underlying demand" is ... about 10.5 million vehicles per year. Or about 40% less than what the Big 3 have planned, built, and staffed for.
Are you sure? Wasn't the pre-crisis level of sales 17-19 million? Have they really learned nothing? And do we really have a Big 3 anymore? You can't be talking about Chrysler, right?
I hear a lot of chatter about people who are trading in their high cost to maintain vehicles for something more modest. Whether it really is a data point or not I don't know and we probably can't. My husbands hangs out a little on an automotive forum and notes a lot of complaining about tire sounds, wind noise, and other stuff from those trade down people.
Wasn't the pre-crisis level of sales 17-19 million?
HELOCs do not have quite the juice they once did...
My recollection from discussion here last Fall was that the "real" market for cars without all of the easy credit/HELOC stuff was about 11 million. BTW, congrats commentariat on your prediction as it appears nearly spot on. My question was more like haven't the car companies figured that out? Where I work, we've adjusted to what we think is a new level of sales, which is substantially below where we were a few years ago. I assumed that everyone else had figured that out-
So you could either raise the fare or lower the subsidy, at a time of elevated unemployment and recent oil inflation.
I'll assume you choose to lower the subsidy. Now you must cut service, wages or maintenance. You can't cut wages without risking a strike even if you can "legally" break the contract. Cutting maintenance could be disaster, in metal and blood terms. You can cut service.
pre-crisis sales were 15-17mn typically. During a couple of mega-incentives like no payment for X years, or employee pricing sales would jump to 21-23mn SAAR for the few months. Not many people saw this coming, and still many did not realize what they were witnessing when it began. Basically the amount of driving done is pretty steady, and the lifetime of a car is best estimated from its distance driven and not its age. Quality has skyrocketed in the last 20 years. Look at the warranties on offer as one sign of that. On top of that, sales volumes actually boomed for a variety of reasons. I believe I argued early last fall that the sustainable annual auto consumption rate was 12mn units, but we have many years of working off shadow inventory (either by not replacing that 3rd vehicle when it wears out, or the liquidating of under-used vehicles into the secondary market). Brought up a tonne of contextual question marks, like rural vs urban, young vs old, employed vs unemployed
Are you sure? Wasn't the pre-crisis level of sales 17-19 million?
Yes.
Have they really learned nothing?
Understand that I've already admitted to knowing next to nothing about the industry ... but IMO it's not that they haven't learned. It's that any industry as capital-intensive as Detroit can't possibly be able to meet demand of 17M (mainly trucks and SUVs) and then, within just two or three years, be confident in their ability to be profitable at an ongoing run-rate of 10M (mainly small, fuel-efficient cars). They just can't. It defies every law of business.
They can get there eventually ... were they prepared to admit that 10M is the "new normal". They're not. And from that perspective, no, they've really learned nothing, I suspect.
So you could either raise the fare or lower the subsidy, at a time of elevated unemployment and recent oil inflation.
What about raising fares 5% ever quarter until we reach 80% of operating costs? It would take a couple years on a national basis but it would provide lots of warning and still represents a significant ongoing subsidy.
Cinco-X - pigged thread - it was one of the travel mugs you can use in the car - like the old Thermos containers - metal liner inside the insulated shell - not ceramic - not made for dishwashing.
All things considered that is a pretty healthy rate considering that it comes post clunkers and wasn't the result of any beneficial government intervention. At those levels I believe GM breaks even.
CR - maybe some of this resulted from the impact C4C had on used car sales. Trashing all the trade-ins had to reduce significantly the number of used vehicles, raising used vehicle prices, and making certain lower priced new vehicles more appetizing with the incentives.
You cut the least used service. Only a small hit to fare revenue, but a hole. Maybe the union will accept fewer hours. Unless...
Cars are already packed most of the time. Now riders are pissed at reduced service and some will substitute more pricey transportation. Fine, but less fare revenue. You could put in a first class subway car, with armed guard. But the daring bankers still would need an escort.
Ford's top economist Emily Kolinski Morris said October sales signal a real underlying demand for new vehicles after the distorting effects of the clunkers program. The economy, she said, is "in transition from recession to recovery.
And in related news, Mr. and Mrs. E.K. Morris are proud to announce the engagement of their daughter, "Eternal Optimist" Emily, to Mr. Lawrence Yun, of the NAR Yuns.
My wife and I have 3 cars for the two of us because when we bought her a new car in 2006 it wasnt worth trading in the other car (worth ~$200 then). So I spend about $500 in parts and now it runs great (1998 civic). Now I drive that and my 2001 Audi. So I won't be buying a new car for myself for probably 5 years or more depending where I live ( I now only drive about 5,000 miles a year). I could definitely see keeing the 2001 Audi till 2020 if the maintenance doesn't get horrendous (> $2,000 per year).
My wife will only get a new car if we need it for family reasons, otherwise her 2006 should be good til 2020.
Cars are very expensive, and I came to the realization that I want to spend as little money on them as possible, so I can spend my money on more enjoyable things (vacations). Cars bring people very little joy, but we sure do tie a lot of our income into them without a need to. People can get very reliable cars for $15,000 brand new that do the job and should last 15 years. For that matter houses these days bring people very little joy and luckily I rent.
Unless you take your car to driving schools / track, or you spend lots of time in your car with your family, its a wasted expense to buy luxury. Preaching to the choir here I guess. Everyone has to come to their own priorities, I just wish people would think things through rationally and with a total budget in mind based on their actual income.
Since Ford stopped giving away vehicles for fleet about two years ago, shortly after Mullaly took over, I don't fleet is dominating sales. If you have cash, you are in a pretty good position to buy right now. You have a high trade-in value, and you have lower retail prices.
One factor for October sales might have been the lack of inventory in september.
I discussed c4c with the local chrysler dealer around labor day. He lamented then that he had very few cars left to sell for september and the supply pipeline was only trickling. He thought it would take him 45 days to restock.
10.5 million is a very low number - and is close to the average during the early '80s recession.
I think replacement levels are closer to 12 to 12.5 million SAAR. (I haven't crunched the number recently, but I think that is about right). So this has to be considered recessionary numbers - not green shoots - but it is still probably depressed by the cash-for-clunkers sales in Q3.
If the economy is even in a sluggish recovery next year, sales should increase to 12 million ... and that would still be worse than the depths of the '91 recession.
I guess I'm trying to point out these are very weak sales!
Also, sales in Q3 were about 11.5 million SAAR, so this is about 10% below that rate meaning auto sales will be a drag on Q4 GDP.
If the system is completely grade separated, then just bring in an automated system which will pay for itself even with mildly negative inflation. That completely neglects local politics, but it is the best choice for all legitimate stakeholders
Cars are already packed most of the time. Now riders are pissed at reduced service and some will substitute more pricey transportation. Fine, but less fare revenue. You could put in a first class subway car, with armed guard. But the daring bankers still would need an escort.
That's a myth. The average bus in the US has 10.55 passengers. The average light rail 23.43. Heavy rail 25.27
What you experience anecdotally distorts the common perceptions. Thought experiment (reducto absurdum):
10 buses 100 passengers. 2 buses with 46 passengers, 8 buses with one passenger. 92% of the passengers think the buses are full.
In the early '80s that was a really, really different time for autos mainly on high cost of fuel and the introduction of cheap, reliable transportation of the Japanese entering the marketplace. So that makes this number even more profound since it is put in that context. Thanks for that.
OK, even a modest 5% fare hike. Doesn't mean you get 5% more revenue, of course, some will bike. Not such a bad thing.
COLA is zero this year, wages are down. So more money on the ride, less to pay rent (subway riders don't all have mortgages). Schoolchildren already get a deep discount, might not notice the 5%. Their teachers might.
But you know from sales tax that if you raise the fare 30%, you will not get close to that in revenue.
Unfortunately, urban transportation systems are built and operated for "rush hours" the peak 4 hours. But, all public transportation systems provide services from early morning until late evening.
Ford is still feeling a lot of pain in the truck and SUV segment. YTD comparison has car sales down 17%. That is pain, but not too much. SUV is down 46% and truck is down 24%. That is pain, particularly in the ole margins.
Re: bus service. Automated transportation is the way of the future. For municipal systems, we need smaller vehicles and greater trip frequency so people don't have to wait 30-45 minutes between buses. Right now, you can't make the system more convenient to riders without increasing costs. We need street cars back.
What about the off-peak rider, as everyone is occasionally. If service is cut, she must take a car. Seems a shame when the marginal cost of running the subway for another hour is small.
Dawg, good point about how people think that buses are more crowded than they are, but one of the key reasons people will ride a bus one way is the assurance that there will be a return trip. If one were to eliminate the empty buses, then the full buses would probably also lose ridership. Also since all the buses are generally running at peak hours, you would have lots of idle buses sitting doing nothing durring non peak hours. Not a very efficent use of the assets.
Capital isn't the problem with transit. Operational costs are the killer. If you can take care of that problem, you have a wealthy future ahead of you.
If you can take care of that problem, you have a wealthy future ahead of you.
Science fiction style Robots. Would look just like bus drivers. Could navigate on existing roads using AI and vision. Bus driver robots would also have an optional feature called "surly mode" where they could insult the riders.
Edit: Robots would pay for real bus-driver's mortgages.
Edit2: NYC Robot bus drivers would be able to use middle finger signal on other human drivers.
Dawg, good point about how people think that buses are more crowded than they are, but one of the key reasons people will ride a bus one way is the assurance that there will be a return trip. If one were to eliminate the empty buses, then the full buses would probably also lose ridership. Also since all the buses are generally running at peak hours, you would have lots of idle buses sitting doing nothing durring non peak hours. Not a very efficent use of the assets.
Agreed. It is also a feature, not a bug that many lines gradually fill up meaning they are almost empty by design at the ends of lines. There's a lot to understand about the subtleties of public transit. I'm just trying to correct some of the common misrepresentations.
There's a lot to understand about the subtleties of public transit.
There's also allot history and politics. Knowing the history of who built some of the best private light-rail systems in the US (and sometimes the world) and why and when they were converted to government agencies goes a long way to know what is possible now.
Edit: Gasp: Free enterprise at work, by Real-Estate developers, no-less:
The Van Sweringen brothers purchased the land of what is now Shaker Heights in 1906 intending to create a planned suburban community. They knew that the success of their plans depended upon the availability of streetcar service to downtown Cleveland, so they organized the Cleveland Interurban Railroad (CIRR).
This may not work in the US, might work in high desity cities.
In Italy the buses go to a main terminal, then people change to other buses going to the area they work in. There are both express buses and stop every 1/2 mile buses. Some of the bus systems I have seen here don't route very efficiently.
"The savings rate has crashed from 15pc in 1990 to near 2pc today, half America's rate. Japan's $1.5 trillion state pension fund (the world's biggest) has become a net seller of government bonds this year, as it must to meet pay-out obligations. The demographic crunch has hit. The workforce been contracting since 2005.
Japan Post Bank is balking at further additions to its $1.7 trillion holdings of state debt. The pillars of the government debt market are crumbling. Little wonder that the Ministry of Finance has begun advertising bonds in Tokyo taxis, featuring Koyuki from The Last Samurai. If Japan's bond rates rise to global levels of 3pc to 4pc, interest costs will shatter state finances."
The pillars of the government debt market are crumbling. Little wonder that the Ministry of Finance has begun advertising bonds in Tokyo taxis, featuring Koyuki from The Last Samurai. If Japan's bond rates rise to global levels of 3pc to 4pc, interest costs will shatter state finances.
Yes. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! Let the Japanese know the full force of the force that they fully knew was coming. Lead us into great nation state of Japan! Hurry up before you are too old to build the robots who are suppose to save you!
Some of the bus systems I have seen here don't route very efficiently.
Because the freeways go through the middle of cities here.
No, inefficiency is inefficiency; the planners have other priorities than just getting from point A to B. At least I hope so, otherwise they're just designing routes at random.
I'm confident that our struggle with aging demographics will be much, much worse.
The axiom for RE can be molded to fit the demographics problem.
.
For RE, there isn't anything price can't fix.
For demographics, there isn't anything death can't fix.
.
I would say more, but I don't want the to overwhelm.
Rob Dawg wrote:
Wow, that 15 year old Sierra Club web page just refuses to die.
Is it supposed to die?
Nope, the "FAct" that it remains up is lasting testament to zeal that drives extremists (on both sides). Thing is the content was discredited so long ago that they've dropped off teh googs. Kinda like what happens to non-consensus AGW in wiki.
Commentary: Do we want Goldman Sachs to make money?
By David Weidner, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Just asking: Is there any other corporate gang we despise or mistrust more on Wall Street than the bankers over at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.?
In the "old days", the sheeple lived either on a farm or in the cities and went from point (A) to point (B) and back again in the evening to home. Since then, many things have changed. One, the population is much more spread out with the advent of "suburbs", and NOT within the confines of a hub. What used to be a "seaboard", or a fairly typical straight (A) to (B) has no resemblance to current reality. Since today's work environment is a service economy, the routing is usually something like: Point (A) to (B) to (C), (D), (E), (F) for appointments, back to (B) and maybe (G) and (I) for two more appts. before returning to (A). Mass transit cannot be utilized by most as the US is not setup like NY. The oil companies, tire manufacturers and car interests saw to that in the 40s and 50s, so enough with the future mass transit - it's an old pipe dream - like a 4-finger $10 bag of killer dope.
Dawg,
Color me confused. The report from the NRC is from late last month, doesn't include costs associated with climate change, and focuses mainly on the external costs associated with air pollutants (human health, crop yields, damage to buildings, etc.).
I've pounded that meme fairly hard and frequently here. The US will be a great place to invest in circa 2030 or so. Perhaps the decade-ahead-of-us trend will hold with Japan, and the Nikkei will be the mother of all buys in 2020 after their entitlement schemes have utterly collapsed. That would be nice. Sort of.
No, inefficiency is inefficiency; the planners have other priorities than just getting from point A to B. At least I hope so, otherwise they're just designing routes at random.
Politics, too. Connected areas can get more bus routes than they deserve. I saw that in San Francisco.
O/T, caveat emptor. Rumors from a dark corner of the Interwebs:
"From Thanksgiving until New Years, it should be a range bound global marketplace. I think if the Dow takes out 8800 by 3rd week of November, then the end of January may see a stunning and horrific stock market drop. A major deflationary gravity well, sucking everything down."
Mass transit cannot be utilized by most as the US is not setup like NY.
You need to get to the city more. Visit Chicago, Cleveland, Philly, Boston, just as much public transportation there. Public transportation is ONLY about moving LOTS of people during rush-hour. Nothing else. As we haven't live in a capitalist system for at least 50 years SO the government pays and decides how it works.
Mike Flynn of Breitbart's biggovernment.com notes that the government pumped $170 billion into the third-quarter economy. But GDP grew by only $150 billion. As I said, ineffectual spending.
But in principle, everything should try to pay for itself.
There's NO going back. WAY too late. We live in a socialist country and have for 50+ years. You can't go back because, like AIG, there's no way to unwind.
I'm shocked that Japan's savings rate is so low. I wonder what caused it to fall off a cliff like that. I know they get almost no return on their savings, but Asians in general are some of the most conservative savers in the world.
Today's powerful move in gold/silver shows how hard it is to try to time these markets. I feel sorry for people who have been in gold/silver for months and then bailed out after it crossed 1020, looking for a pullback. They might get a pullback. Or they might not. There's a lot of conviction behind PMs. But I'm still cautious on miners at this point, except for SLW.
Whatever drove gold/silver higher and bonds lower today can't be good for stocks. So I feel the next shoe to drop will be lower stocks. But I can't predict when. I'm just trying to gradually get ready. Bought more SRS today and maybe more RWM tomorrow. No doubt about it, stocks are weakening by the day. No conviction in stocks.
Dawg,
Color me confused. The report from the NRC is from late last month, doesn't include costs associated with climate change, and focuses mainly on the external costs associated with air pollutants (human health, crop yields, damage to buildings, etc.).
As does the Sierra Club "True Cost of Gasoline" article. The SC listed studies were conducted in the early 90s before the political value of climate scaremongering was appreciated or exploited.
(CN) - Attorneys with Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, a 70-attorney international law firm based in Fort Lauderdale, say they learned "with surprise and sorrow" that managing partner/CEO Scott Rothstein "allegedly orchestrated a substantial misappropriation from investor trust accounts that made use of the law firm's name."
I donno, this is unreal. Everyday, the CTA busses and trains, and METRA trains are PACKED to the gills, moving millions of people INTO Chicago and back to the suburbs EVERY weekday, and have been doing so - under different corporate names - for at least 100 years. I'm not talking about THE FUTURE here. I'm talking NOW, today in fact, it's 5:50 pm now, the Union Station is JAMMED! How do you think people GET into the 3rd largest city in the US to work? On the train and bus.
Remember when Citicards hiked their rates to 29.99% recently for a lot of unsuspecting customers?
Well, I got a "preapproved" offer from them today for a 0% purchase or balance transfer rate until August, 2010 (which is after the new regs phase in). After that date, the rate goes to 16% (usual for them). I thought that was pretty contradictory to their prior move. Weird.
HollywoodHack : I'm confident that our struggle with aging demographics will be much, much worse.
Nobody's talking to me, but I suspect that this is a reason for ignoring the southern border. Much, much higher birth rates, unlike the Japanese who apparently still embrace purity.
By the way, why don't we try to tap the geothermal energy of Yellowstone?
A few billion for steam turbines and a few billion more for distribution systems, maybe it will work Liz. Get's expensive when generation is so far away from the end users.
Think of the engineering knowledge!! Think of the extra people employed. Even if it failed we would
learn a whole lot, including maybe when it's due to blow up.
Apparently the past 20 years of economic decline prompted Japanese to use their savings. The book "Dogs and Demons" documents how Japanese consumer behavior has been different from the conventional wisdom.
"Everyday, the CTA busses and trains, and METRA trains are PACKED to the gills,"
.......OK,......lets say you're right in THAT regard............maybe 20% less packed due to the unemployment issue (unless you believe U-3) ? Doesn't that STILL make it a losing operation? Isn't it AmTrak that spends $32. per customer? What kind of "sound" fiscal policy is THAT?
Of course it is, and the only part of W's platform which I liked was the generally open-borders mindset. The reality, however, is a little different than the ideal. Not every group values education to the same degree, which means that the kind of high-wage producing jobs which naturally flow from universities and r&d may not be in the cards in the future.
Supposedly, the best place for thermal is in Australia. A huge amount of relatively calm hot-stuff just a few miles down. All we've got to figure out is how to get it (or the electricity) from there to here.
Did you have a chance to review the "Homeownership Can Be a Hightmare" thread earlier today?
USA Today link supported your position that cramdowns (in this case "voluntary" by the lender) were the only effective way to prevent strategic/ruthless defaults and keep homes occupied and maintained.
I donno, this is unreal. Everyday, the CTA busses and trains, and METRA trains are PACKED to the gills, moving millions of people INTO Chicago and back to the suburbs EVERY weekday
As far as I can tell, on transportation issues RD is only interested in ROI (return on investment), and has no interest in "externalities", of the type enumerated in that press release, which, after all, are government figures, and therefore not to be trusted.
Perhaps what goes around comes around. My nearby city is pushing for electric trolley, throwing back to the last line which was removed in favor of buses in the '50s.
What's surprising is to drive around the villages in the county and see the occasional historical marker discussing trolleys in the country, taking from ville to ville.
"One time when we need to follow france - more nukes."
.
.....how about we figure out what we're going to do with the lethal toxic waste BEFORE we gather more? And don't say "stuff it in a hole" in MY backyard - unless you're willing to pay every resident of Nye County, NV, a BIG FAT royalty check every year for dealing with YOUR waste in THEIR backyard.
I know little about what the Citi 29% tempest in a teacup, but suffice it to say that not all cards have the same profitability/risk
instead of canceling the cards, they took the soft approach of raising the interest rates and encouraging people to sign up for more profitable cards, if they were in fact still a carduser Citi wanted to keep
Isn't it AmTrak that spends $32. per customer? What kind of "sound" fiscal policy is THAT?
Going back around and around. Amtrak is an aberration. Like NASA. If either went away, nobody would notice, including the "budget". The US transportation system is completely and totally socialist. It has been for 70 years. Nobody knows what "the real cost is" anymore, of ANYTHING related to transportation because you can't unwind what IS already BUILT and in place. It's ridiculous to even talk about at this point.
The reality is NOW you've got socialism which is HOPELESSLY political. Deal with it. The squid owns your financial ass, the socialist own the rest.
There's a lot to understand about the subtleties of public transit. I'm just trying to correct some of the common misrepresentations.
Like the misrepresentation that buses reduce traffic? If they operate on busy streets and make a lot of stops, they make traffic much worse. If you compare traffic during transit strikes, you find that many streets flow much better. That tells you something about where the stops shouldn't be.
If the economy is even in a sluggish recovery next year, sales should increase to 12 million ... - CR
If we have already borrowed demand via C4C, and unemployment is still high, I can't see new car sales going up much, even in fleets. Used cars, bought by individuals, might have a blip.
If you compare traffic during transit strikes, you find that many streets flow much better. That tells you something about where the stops shouldn't be.
Yeah, try putting a few million more cars on the street and talk about traffic.
And she couldn't do the work. I couldn't trust her not to do her homework.
Those issues are the big ones to me. Good workers and workers you can trust are worth a mea culpa here or there. However if you are paying someone who isn't, the porn is more like "Finally, a reason to get rid of you" situation.
Are some of us here opposed to public transportation because it doesn't make a profit? Neither do fire and police protection, or for that matter, the military. Would you prefer a fire department that lets your house - or city - burn down, because it isn't making a profit? Extrapolate to the police and military. Blackwater instead of the military? Pinkertons instead of the police?
C4C took those off the table for a number of cash strapped buyers - T
I was thinking of next year, when unemployed people run out of benefits, and sell the car as a last resort in order to feed their families. Scary, actually.
I think all you transportation-arguers are wrong. All I see are descriptive accounts, stating various slices of how things are today. Yet no one is arguing that what we have today is optimal. So the statements should be normative, and prescribe how things should/could be.
Yes, this is NOT about public transportation. It always come down the "one big happy group hug" brains and the "paranoid of outsiders" brains. Sadly, I know this, but I love hopeless arguments. I argued politics with my father until he died (not from arguing). Brains of different political types will almost NEVER agree on anything.
the first step of homelessness is living in a car, hopefully they can find a nice vacant untended house to takeover instead so they can afford to sell the car for money
Wholesale used vehicle prices (on a mix, mileage and seasonally-adjusted basis) rose 1.8% in September. This brought the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index to a record high of 118.5, representing a 6.9% increase from a year ago. Adjusted wholesale prices have now risen for nine consecutive months.
the first step of homelessness is living in a car... EHP
Well, around here the first step is sleeping on someone's couch, then sleeping in the basement, then sleeping around for money, then sleeping in an RV, and so on. This is after the car has gone the way of all things.
I'll defend myself with this as being the perfect world that can NO LONGER exists. Image developers paying for their OWN transportation infrastructure going forward in the future, and how impossible it is:
The Van Sweringen brothers purchased the land of what is now Shaker Heights in 1906 intending to create a planned suburban community. They knew that the success of their plans depended upon the availability of streetcar service to downtown Cleveland, so they organized the Cleveland Interurban Railroad (CIRR). On October 27, 1911, with a population of only 200, the Village of Shaker Heights was incorporated, and two years later on December 17, 1913 the first section of the CIRR opened, 1.6 miles (2.6 km) from Coventry Road east down the median of the future Shaker Boulevard (then part of Coventry Road) to Fontenay Road (west of Eaton Road). The line connected to downtown Cleveland via a line along Coventry Road to the north to an existing streetcar line on Fairmount Boulevard in Cleveland Heights. On May 20, 1915 the eastern terminus was extended from Fontenay Road to Courtland Boulevard.
As construction progressed in Shaker Heights, the Van Sweringens realized that the connection to Cleveland Railway's streetcar system through Cleveland Heights resulted in a slow trip to downtown. They planned for a grade-separated right-of-way all the way to downtown that could significantly reduce travel times for commuters, and thus increase the desirability of their suburb. In 1915 they acquired a majority interest in the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (the Nickel Plate Road), mainly to allow for a line next to a relocated NYC&StL. The next section of CIRR opened in April 1920, running west from Coventry Road down the median of the new Shaker Boulevard to Woodhill Road, then across the Cleveland Short Line Railway (New York Central Railroad) and alongside a CSL branch to East 55th Street. West of East 55th Street, where the CSL branch crossed over the parallel Nickel Plate, the new streetcar line also crossed the Nickel Plate, continuing west between the branch and Nickel Plate, then up a ramp to the intersection of the Kingsbury Viaduct (East 34th Street) and Broadway. From there, the CIRR cars traveled along the tracks of Cleveland Railway's Broadway line, using street-running for the remainder of the trip downtown.
I'm very supportive of public transit myself. There are just many real problems with implementing a mass transit system in a country whose oldest housing stock is 100-250 years old and where over half the development has occurred since 1950. It requires a different incentive system than in Europe where a newer home is less than 200 years old.
"It always come down the "one big happy group hug" brains and the "paranoid of outsiders" brain."
Not as far as I'm concerned. There are people who believe that they owe nothing to anybody, when in fact they are surrounded by a cocoon of publicly funded services without they might very well die. Water purification. Sewage. Garbage collection. Police and fire protection. EMT services. On and on.
Like the misrepresentation that buses reduce traffic? If they operate on busy streets and make a lot of stops, they make traffic much worse. If you compare traffic during transit strikes, you find that many streets flow much better. That tells you something about where the stops shouldn't be.
Or, you can turn it around and look at places where bus transportation has been encouraged and auto travel discouraged. Such as my little town.
The downtown area used to be a great place to go shopping. Plenty of free parking, traffic fairly reasonable. Then, the city decided that people needed to use more buses. So they removed auto lanes, added bus lanes, reduced available parking, and raised parking fees. Now, the buses run almost empty, traffic is so bad that a dozen intersections are gridlocked much of the day, to the extent that they were forced to deploy a small army of white-gloved police to break up gridlocks. It's a total mess. I feel sorry for the retailers and CRE owners in downtown.
NotaRealAmerican, I haven't seen any movie for quite some time.
I think you'd like it. You might want to rent the DVD when it come out.
Has some interesting thoughts on God, from a Jewish perspective - but I'm not Jewish and laughed my ass off during the movie. Was one of the best I've seen for awhile. I grew-up Catholic, so that's almost jewish from a quantity of guilt perspective.
Seriously? Having sex for room is after couch surfing and basement lurking but before sleeping in someone's RV?? - Y
Yes, because it's easy to break into an RV, so your stuff gets ripped off and you get beaten up and/or raped. Better to go to a "friends with benefits" arrangement than that.
More socialism. Buses in small towns make no sense. But, as transportation hasn't been "costed" for 70+ years, the government decides. The squid win in the end, so Hu cares.
And where do these carpoolers park?
Do many people just call in sick during a strike, which usually doesn't last long?
Many people work from home. Some people carpool, and in places like LA there are a number of companies with carpool spaces which usually sit empty.
LA has particularly poorly chosen routes and stops on the Westside. I suspect that residents put up a fight if buses start to operate on side streets. However, those buses cause a lot of problems on Wilshire and Santa Monica.
One thing has improved about public transit. More and more natural gas buses. The diesel used to make a mess, and wasn't good to breathe.
...there is an interest chart of the average milage of compact cars sold at auction.
It has gone from 51k to 63k in the last 9 months. And no, it isn't seasonal. 63k is the highest number during the period covered by the chart, since Sep 06. [Note that 12k increase is greater than the average miles driven over that period. Remarkable!]
So the recession has people holding onto their cars longer (apparently much longer) and C4C destroyed a bunch more, driving prices up even in the face of a dismal economy.
"Then, the city decided that people needed to use more buses. "
I live in the DC area, where people waste hours of their lives every working day, sitting in miles long parking lots called traffic jams. Often, they're injured or killed in 'accidents.'
Do we need more commuting and more cars? How would that hel?. The causes are complex, and the solutions probably unobtainable, at least in the short run, but we do not need more automobiles.
Yes, because it's easy to break into an RV, so your stuff gets ripped off and you get beaten up and/or raped. Better to go to a "friends with benefits" arrangement than that.
Seriously, I had no idea that was how the pecking order went. I didn't have the "stuff" part in mind 'cause if you have no place surely have little stuff. Just goes to show how I am either not looking at the problem or lacking personal anecdotes to understand the dynamics in play.
.
How does that arrangement even work? Sounds like a really odd/stressful landlord/tenant relationship especially for the "tenant"
Rob Dawg wrote:
Sure. METRA is a pimple.
I've forgetten why you even care.
More example of misallocation of resources via government redistribution of productive effort. Transit is the public vehicle equivalent of C4C 24x7 for decades. The results are equally perverse. C4C bumped auto sales. C4T bumps transit ridership. Bad market signals are bad market signals.
How many people would be homeowners if we gave them free houses and subsidized 60% of the monthly expenses?
What is needed is the lowest cost and most convenient solutions, regardless of what it is. But, the type 1's & 3's are philosophically against "public" - unless it's already paid for and they happen to like it; then it's fine (duplicity always wins).
You aren't considering the cost to buy a car and the decreased amount of credit in the marketplace. Right now, the problem is people who can buy won't (or already have) and the people who can't buy loiter in the showroom.
.
Is it inflationary? It probably will be.
Are we there yet? No.
at least in the short run, but we do not need more automobiles
One of my favorite programs to reduce traffic was seizing abandoned vehicles and those from drunk drivers with revoked licenses. More parking spaces for people who were actually driving, and fewer dangerous people on the road.
I live in the DC area, where people waste hours of their lives every working day, sitting in miles long parking lots called traffic jams. Often, they're injured or killed in 'accidents.'
Very few people killed in traffic jams, unless the accident they were in caused the traffic jam. This is because the energy in a collision is primarily a function of speed, since there's a ^2 exponent to speed in the equation E=1/2mv^2. The Boston area has lots of accidents due to congestion, but comparatively few deaths.
Part of the argument is whether taxpayer subsidies are always unfair/bad/inefficient.
I say it's a question of whether removing them is worse. Case-by-case. No one likes free-riders. Anyone who did not do a tour of combat duty is a free-rider. Anyone benefiting from the mortgage interest tax deduction is a free-rider. Anyone with access to cash at .25% is a free-rider.
The kid who hops the turnstile to go to the park for some exercise, him too.
LA has particularly poorly chosen routes and stops on the Westside. I suspect that residents put up a fight if buses start to operate on side streets. However, those buses cause a lot of problems on Wilshire and Santa Monica.
One thing has improved about public transit. More and more natural gas buses. The diesel used to make a mess, and wasn't good to breathe.
The natural gas buses are a blessing - compared to the black-smoke belching monsters of yore.
But they are still incredibly noisy, which is a large part of why people don't want them on residential streets.
One day, I hope the transportation planners get clue about the insanity of running eighty-seat buses at 2% capacity. If they substituted commuter van-type equipment, they could run it on residential streets. And they can definitely run vans on NatGas, because they have already installed the fueling facilities to support the behemoth buses.
I recall RD telling us once some time back that there was a local bus that took his kids to the beach in the summertime for 25¢ that he didn't mind using, "because it was there". Go figure. I wonder what the subsidy was for that. I was particularly struck by that statement at the time, because it seemed to go against the main thrust of his argument.
if you have no place surely have little stuff. - y
Seriously? The homeless people here typically have at least 2 large shopping carts full of stuff. In Dignity Village, people have little houses full of stuff. The need to acquire stuff doesn't go away just because one has no money. And that type of poverty is "richer" than some others. Thailand springs to mind. On this planet, there is always a deeper level of hell into which one can fall.
One argument for public transit is that it increases property values. If I was grand poobah for a city, I would toll the freeways and stop charging fares on buses, thus eliminating the cost of collection and increasing ridership.
The homeless people here typically have at least 2 large shopping carts full of stuff. In Dignity Village, people have little houses full of stuff. The need to acquire stuff doesn't go away just because one has no money.
I'm not a "stuff" person just like I'm not a "photo album" person. If anything, every time I move I purposefully get rid of stuff because I realize it isn't adding value or convenient (or heck use) to my life. When I was more of a roamer, I tried to ensure that everything I owned could be moved by one person in one vehicle. Is that kind of lifestyle easy for many or even desirable? Probably not, but it made my life much easier.
I think the problem with a lot of public transportation is that buses pass as an acceptable form of public transportation to some people. Sure, separated grade rail can't go everywhere for everyone but neither can busses and busses don't alleviate congestion or pollution and are prone to the same drawbacks of operator error. Busses are the cheap ass half ass public transit option.
^thinks of England^
^thinks of England^
^thinks of England^
...Ow.
^in pain, thinks of England^
^in pain, thinks of England^
^in pain, thinks of England^
Yes, in the immediate vicinity of the stops. But there is an equal or greater loss in the unserved areas, away from the stops.
It's only going to increase or decrease ANYTHING if public transit is convenient to the occupants of the property. Key-riste, there's nothing magic OR sinister about public transit. It's moves LARGE numbers of people from one spot to another. Period. That's IT.
I recall RD telling us once some time back that there was a local bus that took his kids to the beach in the summertime for 25¢ that he didn't mind using, "because it was there". Go figure. I wonder what the subsidy was for that. I was particularly struck by that statement at the time, because it seemed to go against the main thrust of his argument.
I use subsidized transit myself. Says nothing about the issue. I doubt any refuses Prop 13 protection either.
Buses in Phoenix burbs don't make sense. You usually have to walk 1/2 mile or more to a stop, in 112 deg heat in the summer. There are a few "park and ride" areas in the nicer areas that are useful if you work at the mall.
I did like the longer service hours. When people can get to work but not get home, doesn't help at all.
In Atlanta, the buses are not that expensive; it's the (unionized) drivers that really drain the system of money. The transit isn't subsidized, it's the union that's subsidized.
Exactly. But, transit money, LIKE highway money has to be evenly divided. So, we have busses running every other hour in the sac suburbs, empty. But full other routes are over capacity. It's the government, there's NO OTHER way to do it.
That's kind of an overly general statement that has no reflection on the differences that every city has.
No, it does. It's a huge complaint in LA right now. The new heavy-rail system is being built at much higher cost/seat than busses. Commuter trains are expensive to build and operation compared to busses. How cares about the poor tho. Not Hu.
The seasonal correction for adjusting new car sales drops dramatically for the next four months (i.e. will add to the actual sales). So even in good times new car sales would be expected to drop by 10-15% over that period.
The board of General Motors voted to keep the company's Opel division rather than sell a majority stake to a Canadian car-parts manufacturer and the largest lending bank in Russia, Bloomberg reported Nov. 3. The vote sets aside an agreement to sell 55 percent of Opel to Magna International Inc. and Sberbank."
The board of General Motors voted to keep the company's Opel division rather than sell a majority stake to a Canadian car-parts manufacturer and the largest lending bank in Russia, Bloomberg reported Nov. 3.
I'm not sure we're communicating. Voluntary 'simplification' of a middle class person's possessions has nothing to do with this kind of poverty. And most of these people probably thought they lived pretty modestly before they crashed. It really can happen to anybody.
Buses on the West Coast are usually your only option since there was no urban planning or foresight.
LA has one of the best heavy-rail systems in the country right now. Generally, Chicago is considered as the best, then Boston (I think), then LA. This is Heavy Rail, not light-rail, subway, bus. Just heavy-rail commuter trains.
Here we go in circles again. Let's get a cut-rate union-busting bus-driver: I drive good.
Very fast. No health benefits, happy to have job. Will clean bus after. Let bus finance company pay bonus to financiers. No pension. I shoot self when i too old to drive bus.
id say it means that german UE rate isnt going to stay quite as low as they hoped. Unless of course they decide to leave these people on payroll too, and just have the govt pay them to play The Settlers of Catan like they are doing with a few million other folks.
It depends on the brain's political types. I think you'll find that many people on this site are MUCH more pissed out-of-their-minds at THOSE DAMN UNION BASTARDS than all the banksters and squidwards combined.
No, I'm saying if I found myself bad a$$ destitute I wouldn't lug around 2 shopping carts full of "stuff". I'm not saying my situation is similar to their situation, but refuting your "people want stuff even if they are homeless" comment.
Buses make sense in the PHX burbs plenty fine. Use the scheduling software to plan your trip so you barely have to wait. Half mile walk is the max distance unless you're up north of Frank Lloyd Wright. In Tempe they have the orbital buses that cut the walk down that much faster. As a hub(light rail) and spoke(bus) system it works quite well in tandem.
But what else does LA have in terms of shorter trip public transportation beside buses? Rail for longer trips, buses for everything else = clusterfuck.
barfly wrote:
then why is it such a hot button issue for you?
Liberals. Nothing else. Global warming. Liberals.
[How many of your positions do I get to describe for you?]
Transit is an important issue because it is a leading indicator of what we can expect from similar policies as power devolves away from people through municipalities through States ultimately into the hands of a Federal bureaucracy with few enumerated but ever growing practical powers.
It's a huge complaint in LA right now. The new heavy-rail system is being built at much higher cost/seat than busses. Commuter trains are expensive to build and operation compared to busses.
And they periodically crash at great cost in life and property. Not to mention that the tracks cross many streets at grade. Some communities have gone nuts when they run them past schools due to the hazards.
refuting your "people want stuff even if they are homeless" comment. - Y
I would suggest you go volunteer at a homeless shelter or at the food bank. Then you would see for yourself that most homeless people are either carrying around a lot of stuff, or they have it stashed somewhere safe. That's one reason it's sometimes hard to get people to go into shelters, because other homeless people rip them off. It's a recognized problem in the service community of people trying to help this population.
Catholic guilt centers on sex. Judaism is ok with sex--I think its a blessing,
but imposes guilt for everything else.
Jewish (present or former) have agreed.
The hub IS buying a new car, went and got approved at the credit union
and will give the old Saturn to the son who will get rid of his vershluggener
motorcycle.
"Transit is an important issue because it is a leading indicator "
If it's such a leading indicator, and it indicates increased Federal power, how come it's so lousy in most places?
Transit is an important issue because it is a leading indicator of what we can expect from similar policies as power devolves away from people through municipalities through States ultimately into the hands of a Federal bureaucracy with few enumerated but ever growing practical powers. - RD
ahhh, now I see. The slippery-slope argument. Makes perfect sense.
Is a new car purchase classifed as "sex" guilt or "other" guilt?
I knew of a guy who bought an Escalade only because his GF at the time said that she would do up in the passenger seat at any location of his choosing. He bought it for her. She kept up her part of the bargain. She then left him for another guy and moved to LA.
.
"Stupid is as Stupid does, Sir"
you'd think they'd make people dependent on federally controlled transit.
From the 50s forward, they wanted to make people dependent on Detroit, and it worked wonderfully. It isn't that the Feds don't have the power. It is just being directed towards places that don't immediately catch your eye.
Transit is an important issue because it is a leading indicator of what we can expect from similar policies as power devolves away from people through municipalities through States ultimately into the hands of a Federal bureaucracy with few enumerated but ever growing practical powers.
Shoulda been worried about THAT when they started funding the freeways and airports, don't ya think. Kinda late now. Kinda like regulating the banks now that they burnt down the country in a deregulation frenzy.
They convinced SF to mess up and stop their rather good public transit system, yes?
.
Besides, pork for autos helped many more areas of our economy than the rail system did. Hu can blame them?
Shoulda been worried about THAT when they started funding the freeways and airports, don't ya think. Kinda late now. Kinda like regulating the banks now that they burnt down the country in a deregulation frenzy.
Roads users and airport users are charged more than the costs for their infrastructure and operation. That's why there are gas taxes and passenger facilities charges and there aren't any of either on public transit.
you talking about taking the train? Or getting a pizza?
When Hollywood takes money, they just always show a loss.
When NYC takes money, they show a big gain for a big bonus and then just get more gov't money.
Rob Dawg wrote:
Rods users and airport users are charged more than the costs for their infrastructure and operation.
Who built the first ones? Gas taxes and 747 fees?
Federal-Aid Highway and Highway
Revenue Act of 1956, Public Law 627, 84th Congress, approved June 29,
1956 SELF FINANCING:
To make the federal-aid highway program self-financing, the
Highway Revenue Act of 1956 (13) was incorporated as Title II of
this legislation that imposed new taxes and increased others
levied on highway users who directly benefitted from this
program.
Section 205 of this Highway Revenue Act authorized an increase in
the federal gasoline tax from two to three-cents per gallon for
the sixteen-year period from July 1, 1956, through June 30, 1972.
The FHWA has accurate records going back to 1921.
Don't even get me started on the periodic theft of the AvTF.
It's the damn socialist to blame. If we just let every American have their god given right to drive alone in a 6000 pound 12 mph behemoth America could regain it's superpower status.
I blame the commies, greenies, fornicators and those who hate free market capitalism, the one true religion and the velvet guiding hand of the towering capitalists who made this nation great.
yogi
I don't care what DC did, if it's grade separated you can easily run a good automatic system. Vancouver's metro opened in 1985 and has never had drivers. Probably the best safety record out there too. Might as well argue India should go back to banning the use computers again because humans could be doing the math, communication, switching, and storage instead
if it's grade separated you can easily run a good automatic system.
This is THE key thing. Many of the old systems aren't and probably can't be without huge expense. BART is, but still has "drivers". I don't know how you Canadians do stuff like that.
Section 205 of this Highway Revenue Act authorized an increase in
the federal gasoline tax from two to three-cents per gallon for
the sixteen-year period from July 1, 1956, through June 30, 1972.
and now we're up to a whopping 18.4¢. That barely keeps up with inflation.
I don't know how much attention the public transportation people pay to network theory, but it's really a network problem, with some interesting dimensions.
Packet switched networks (which is transportation - the packet is the vehicle, goodput is the number of passengers, etc.), have lots of topology related inefficiencies, and in particular don't scale proportionally to traffic with large numbers of nodes.
This is a huge problem for the car networks, it is provably impossible for large cities to provide enough road capacity for all users, and that problem scales very badly with size. The other networks are more efficient, in the goodput sense of the useful traffic to packet ratio, so can theoretically handle larger user numbers, but the underlying issue doesn't entirely go away. If you build a really efficient transport network for a city, the most likely result is that you'll allow the city to increase in size to the point where it is no longer an efficient transport network. Also, although most cities have in some sense grown around their transportation network - as LawyerLiz pointed out, if you're a developer you want transport links - so it isn't necessarily an optimal design to begin with, especially in the cases where bribery was involved. Transport networks tends to be more optimal when they evolve fairly organically - unless the planners really know what they are doing - but the problem quite often in the older cities, is that it's optimal for a much lower population density, and different traffic pattern.
Population density, is a major part of the problem, and why it's very hard currently for the US to have the kind of inter-city train network that the Europeans have. Interestingly, the hub and spoke network topology that the airlines use there, is a fairly nice, efficient design (for the airlines, not necessarily for the individual passenger). But then the airlines have a lot more degrees of freedom for their routing decisions.
and now we're up to a whopping 18.4¢. That barely keeps up with inflation.
True but we are more efficient and state matches have risen substantially and we have transitioned to more maintenance away from expansion. At that you re correct. We need anywhere from 5-12¢ more per gallon combined state/fed.
someone stated on the prior thread or 2 that this may be a groundswell for gold and it may drop in the next couple days. We'll see.
They've been saying that for months. Remember all that scary stuff about how the IMF would dump big tons of gold?
Well, they did. And there were buyers. Like I've been saying, there is accumulation in gold, and it's coming from several places. Don't bet against accumulation. Trading is not accumulation.
the beltway region, specifically the NoVa part of it, suffers from traffic in the same way that medieval royalty suffered from gout. that's what happens when you eat the meat and cheese that rightfully belongs to everyone else, the arteries get clogged.
keep on trucking
Are any of those sales...fleet sales?
Whew, glad to see someone had a comment.
I was afraid this would be a dead thread.
Nanoo-Nanoo wrote:
Some certainly are; didn;t CR state sometime back that the fleet in the US was getting quite old, and that this situation couldn't last forever?
Bold prediction: we won't see 10m again until spring barring another stimprog.
The talking head from GM on CNBS discussed how GM currently has 4K of incentives baked in.
Between that and the health care and pension liabilities, there is no way that the taxpayer 'investment' in GM could ever be anything except just another incredibly inefficient form of welfare.
Thank you Cinco: I like to look for the not so obvious in reporting numbers and thats the only thing I could think of. Of course it is speculation on my part. I'm sure autos are being sold, but with other dismal numbers out there, in particular UE, I have a little trouble swallowing even this modest number totally whole.
Ford's top economist Emily Kolinski Morris said October sales signal a real underlying demand for new vehicles after the distorting effects of the clunkers program.
Well, yeah. The "real underlying demand" is ... about 10.5 million vehicles per year. Or about 40% less than what the Big 3 have planned, built, and staffed for.
Somehow, I don't think that's the message Ms. Morris and her clan were intending to propagate.
Mook wrote:
Are you sure? Wasn't the pre-crisis level of sales 17-19 million? Have they really learned nothing? And do we really have a Big 3 anymore? You can't be talking about Chrysler, right?
Cinco-X wrote:
HELOCs do not have quite the juice they once did...
What is the peasant class / nobility class break-down tho. Did the high-end german iron take a hit?
I hear a lot of chatter about people who are trading in their high cost to maintain vehicles for something more modest. Whether it really is a data point or not I don't know and we probably can't. My husbands hangs out a little on an automotive forum and notes a lot of complaining about tire sounds, wind noise, and other stuff from those trade down people.
Blackhalo wrote:
Wasn't the pre-crisis level of sales 17-19 million?
HELOCs do not have quite the juice they once did...
My recollection from discussion here last Fall was that the "real" market for cars without all of the easy credit/HELOC stuff was about 11 million. BTW, congrats commentariat on your prediction as it appears nearly spot on. My question was more like haven't the car companies figured that out? Where I work, we've adjusted to what we think is a new level of sales, which is substantially below where we were a few years ago. I assumed that everyone else had figured that out-
10.5 million bet my expectations. I think I'll go out and buy some risky assets tomorrow. Not!
You stated "operating costs"
So you could either raise the fare or lower the subsidy, at a time of elevated unemployment and recent oil inflation.
I'll assume you choose to lower the subsidy. Now you must cut service, wages or maintenance. You can't cut wages without risking a strike even if you can "legally" break the contract. Cutting maintenance could be disaster, in metal and blood terms. You can cut service.
pre-crisis sales were 15-17mn typically. During a couple of mega-incentives like no payment for X years, or employee pricing sales would jump to 21-23mn SAAR for the few months. Not many people saw this coming, and still many did not realize what they were witnessing when it began. Basically the amount of driving done is pretty steady, and the lifetime of a car is best estimated from its distance driven and not its age. Quality has skyrocketed in the last 20 years. Look at the warranties on offer as one sign of that. On top of that, sales volumes actually boomed for a variety of reasons. I believe I argued early last fall that the sustainable annual auto consumption rate was 12mn units, but we have many years of working off shadow inventory (either by not replacing that 3rd vehicle when it wears out, or the liquidating of under-used vehicles into the secondary market). Brought up a tonne of contextual question marks, like rural vs urban, young vs old, employed vs unemployed
Are you sure? Wasn't the pre-crisis level of sales 17-19 million?
Yes.
Have they really learned nothing?
Understand that I've already admitted to knowing next to nothing about the industry ... but IMO it's not that they haven't learned. It's that any industry as capital-intensive as Detroit can't possibly be able to meet demand of 17M (mainly trucks and SUVs) and then, within just two or three years, be confident in their ability to be profitable at an ongoing run-rate of 10M (mainly small, fuel-efficient cars). They just can't. It defies every law of business.
They can get there eventually ... were they prepared to admit that 10M is the "new normal". They're not. And from that perspective, no, they've really learned nothing, I suspect.
nice. at least this is a real, positive surprise.
the consumer has more gas in the tank so to speak... more debt for the taking.
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
What about raising fares 5% ever quarter until we reach 80% of operating costs? It would take a couple years on a national basis but it would provide lots of warning and still represents a significant ongoing subsidy.
Cinco-X - pigged thread - it was one of the travel mugs you can use in the car - like the old Thermos containers - metal liner inside the insulated shell - not ceramic - not made for dishwashing.
All things considered that is a pretty healthy rate considering that it comes post clunkers and wasn't the result of any beneficial government intervention. At those levels I believe GM breaks even.
EvilHenryPaulson wrote:
Yes, I believe you did. I just couldn't remember, but in hindsight, it seems prescient-
That happens more than a little here
I'm relieved to see people taking on debt at an annual rate of 10.5 million x +/- 20,000
"...tire sounds, wind noise, and other stuff from those trade down people."
They miss sitting in a sofa on wheels?
Our '04 Civic has a hard ride, but I like feeling the road. It also keeps me awake.
CR - maybe some of this resulted from the impact C4C had on used car sales. Trashing all the trade-ins had to reduce significantly the number of used vehicles, raising used vehicle prices, and making certain lower priced new vehicles more appetizing with the incentives.
Ah, I see,...made for guys.
You cut the least used service. Only a small hit to fare revenue, but a hole. Maybe the union will accept fewer hours. Unless...
Cars are already packed most of the time. Now riders are pissed at reduced service and some will substitute more pricey transportation. Fine, but less fare revenue. You could put in a first class subway car, with armed guard. But the daring bankers still would need an escort.
sdtfs wrote:
But back on point to the discussion in the thread, you know it is bad when the U.S. Capitol gift shop is selling mugs made in China . . .
Is there a site that shows the vehicle sales by make and model? I'm interested in how many of each model Ford is selling.
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
It's pointless. You can raise fairs and cut service to the point that nobody will use the system. There's no "break even" point.
From Mish:
5-X
how could you forget, I'm less than shy when it come to self-promotion on here
Cinco-X wrote:
And in related news, Mr. and Mrs. E.K. Morris are proud to announce the engagement of their daughter, "Eternal Optimist" Emily, to Mr. Lawrence Yun, of the NAR Yuns.
EHP - you have a good point.
My wife and I have 3 cars for the two of us because when we bought her a new car in 2006 it wasnt worth trading in the other car (worth ~$200 then). So I spend about $500 in parts and now it runs great (1998 civic). Now I drive that and my 2001 Audi. So I won't be buying a new car for myself for probably 5 years or more depending where I live ( I now only drive about 5,000 miles a year). I could definitely see keeing the 2001 Audi till 2020 if the maintenance doesn't get horrendous (> $2,000 per year).
My wife will only get a new car if we need it for family reasons, otherwise her 2006 should be good til 2020.
Cars are very expensive, and I came to the realization that I want to spend as little money on them as possible, so I can spend my money on more enjoyable things (vacations). Cars bring people very little joy, but we sure do tie a lot of our income into them without a need to. People can get very reliable cars for $15,000 brand new that do the job and should last 15 years. For that matter houses these days bring people very little joy and luckily I rent.
Unless you take your car to driving schools / track, or you spend lots of time in your car with your family, its a wasted expense to buy luxury. Preaching to the choir here I guess. Everyone has to come to their own priorities, I just wish people would think things through rationally and with a total budget in mind based on their actual income.
Since Ford stopped giving away vehicles for fleet about two years ago, shortly after Mullaly took over, I don't fleet is dominating sales. If you have cash, you are in a pretty good position to buy right now. You have a high trade-in value, and you have lower retail prices.
M wrote:
Bling is rational to most people.
EvilHenryPaulson wrote:
Ummm......because I'm old and forgetful
One factor for October sales might have been the lack of inventory in september.
I discussed c4c with the local chrysler dealer around labor day. He lamented then that he had very few cars left to sell for september and the supply pipeline was only trickling. He thought it would take him 45 days to restock.
10.5 million is a very low number - and is close to the average during the early '80s recession.
I think replacement levels are closer to 12 to 12.5 million SAAR. (I haven't crunched the number recently, but I think that is about right). So this has to be considered recessionary numbers - not green shoots - but it is still probably depressed by the cash-for-clunkers sales in Q3.
If the economy is even in a sluggish recovery next year, sales should increase to 12 million ... and that would still be worse than the depths of the '91 recession.
I guess I'm trying to point out these are very weak sales!
Also, sales in Q3 were about 11.5 million SAAR, so this is about 10% below that rate meaning auto sales will be a drag on Q4 GDP.
best to all.
If the system is completely grade separated, then just bring in an automated system which will pay for itself even with mildly negative inflation. That completely neglects local politics, but it is the best choice for all legitimate stakeholders
Seems misleading to annualize a one time factor such as C4C. Not like the program will repeat 12x. A chart of actual sales (NSA) might be informative.
JIm
Is there a site that shows the vehicle sales by make and model? I'm interested in how many of each model Ford is selling.
Buried in a link within the press release which someone posted earlier this morning:
http://media.ford.com/images/10031/October09sales.pdf
Just how damaged was the domestic automotive supply chain, up and down the line?
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
That's a myth. The average bus in the US has 10.55 passengers. The average light rail 23.43. Heavy rail 25.27
What you experience anecdotally distorts the common perceptions. Thought experiment (reducto absurdum):
10 buses 100 passengers. 2 buses with 46 passengers, 8 buses with one passenger. 92% of the passengers think the buses are full.
In the early '80s that was a really, really different time for autos mainly on high cost of fuel and the introduction of cheap, reliable transportation of the Japanese entering the marketplace. So that makes this number even more profound since it is put in that context. Thanks for that.
OK, even a modest 5% fare hike. Doesn't mean you get 5% more revenue, of course, some will bike. Not such a bad thing.
COLA is zero this year, wages are down. So more money on the ride, less to pay rent (subway riders don't all have mortgages). Schoolchildren already get a deep discount, might not notice the 5%. Their teachers might.
But you know from sales tax that if you raise the fare 30%, you will not get close to that in revenue.
Rob Dawg wrote:
Unfortunately, urban transportation systems are built and operated for "rush hours" the peak 4 hours. But, all public transportation systems provide services from early morning until late evening.
Ford is still feeling a lot of pain in the truck and SUV segment. YTD comparison has car sales down 17%. That is pain, but not too much. SUV is down 46% and truck is down 24%. That is pain, particularly in the ole margins.
Must tend to hearth, home and cute little doggie...until next time.
badger
caveat: this time last year, after the price of gasoline dropped, there was a big surge in SUV and Truck sales
92% are sitting on full buses.
And don't leave out my "unless". This is a hypothetical. Of course fares must sometimes go up to match the fed's printer.
I think the following two graphs would be very striking of the recession.
2 graph of total SUV sales total per month for this decade (2000-2009) (so not normalized to total sales volume).
So are we taking bets yet on when the Japanese government collapses?
ac wrote:
Not sure Hu would want it Tu.
Thanks, Mook!
Re: bus service. Automated transportation is the way of the future. For municipal systems, we need smaller vehicles and greater trip frequency so people don't have to wait 30-45 minutes between buses. Right now, you can't make the system more convenient to riders without increasing costs. We need street cars back.
$3 gas certainly seems to help the small car sales.
~splat
What about the off-peak rider, as everyone is occasionally. If service is cut, she must take a car. Seems a shame when the marginal cost of running the subway for another hour is small.
Hate to say it, as I drive allot for work, but the price of gas at $4. gal solves allot of problems.
Dawg, good point about how people think that buses are more crowded than they are, but one of the key reasons people will ride a bus one way is the assurance that there will be a return trip. If one were to eliminate the empty buses, then the full buses would probably also lose ridership. Also since all the buses are generally running at peak hours, you would have lots of idle buses sitting doing nothing durring non peak hours. Not a very efficent use of the assets.
Capital isn't the problem with transit. Operational costs are the killer. If you can take care of that problem, you have a wealthy future ahead of you.
I know I'm going to regret this, but...
Dawg, "cost" can have a lot of components.
badger wrote:
Science fiction style Robots. Would look just like bus drivers. Could navigate on existing roads using AI and vision. Bus driver robots would also have an optional feature called "surly mode" where they could insult the riders.
Edit: Robots would pay for real bus-driver's mortgages.
Edit2: NYC Robot bus drivers would be able to use middle finger signal on other human drivers.
Dirk van Dijk wrote:
Agreed. It is also a feature, not a bug that many lines gradually fill up meaning they are almost empty by design at the ends of lines. There's a lot to understand about the subtleties of public transit. I'm just trying to correct some of the common misrepresentations.
Rob Dawg wrote:
There's also allot history and politics. Knowing the history of who built some of the best private light-rail systems in the US (and sometimes the world) and why and when they were converted to government agencies goes a long way to know what is possible now.
Edit: Gasp: Free enterprise at work, by Real-Estate developers, no-less:
The Van Sweringen brothers purchased the land of what is now Shaker Heights in 1906 intending to create a planned suburban community. They knew that the success of their plans depended upon the availability of streetcar service to downtown Cleveland, so they organized the Cleveland Interurban Railroad (CIRR).
Blue and Green Lines (Cleveland) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This may not work in the US, might work in high desity cities.
In Italy the buses go to a main terminal, then people change to other buses going to the area they work in. There are both express buses and stop every 1/2 mile buses. Some of the bus systems I have seen here don't route very efficiently.
josap wrote:
Because the freeways go through the middle of cities here. Hell, ROMA, has less freeways in the middle of it than Podunk Iowa here.
El Lurko wrote:
Wow, that 15 year old Sierra Club web page just refuses to die. Here it is: America's Autos on Welfare - Transportation - Sierra Club
I won't get into intangibles, just watch how Philadelphia plays out.
You might not know how many riders already value their discounted fare.
3 kids going to school paying full fare would be edit $67.50/week.
Rob Dawg wrote:
Is it supposed to die?
It is Japan we should be worrying about, not America - Telegraph
"The savings rate has crashed from 15pc in 1990 to near 2pc today, half America's rate. Japan's $1.5 trillion state pension fund (the world's biggest) has become a net seller of government bonds this year, as it must to meet pay-out obligations. The demographic crunch has hit. The workforce been contracting since 2005.
Japan Post Bank is balking at further additions to its $1.7 trillion holdings of state debt. The pillars of the government debt market are crumbling. Little wonder that the Ministry of Finance has begun advertising bonds in Tokyo taxis, featuring Koyuki from The Last Samurai. If Japan's bond rates rise to global levels of 3pc to 4pc, interest costs will shatter state finances."
rosethorn wrote:
Yes. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! Let the Japanese know the full force of the force that they fully knew was coming. Lead us into
great nation state of Japan! Hurry up before you are too old to build the robots who are suppose to save you!
I'm confident that our struggle with aging demographics will be much, much worse.
People always warn about us following Japan's path since the 90's. But we haven't even seen the endgame yet for the Japan experience.
No, inefficiency is inefficiency; the planners have other priorities than just getting from point A to B. At least I hope so, otherwise they're just designing routes at random.
HollywoodHack wrote:
The axiom for RE can be molded to fit the demographics problem.
to overwhelm. 
.
For RE, there isn't anything price can't fix.
For demographics, there isn't anything death can't fix.
.
I would say more, but I don't want the
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
Nope, the "FAct" that it remains up is lasting testament to zeal that drives extremists (on both sides). Thing is the content was discredited so long ago that they've dropped off teh googs. Kinda like what happens to non-consensus AGW in wiki.
The hub is looking at Forda.
The girl is fired. She denied it.
Rob Dawg wrote:
Well, global cooling is still around, so I guess there's hope.
The evil empire strikes again
lawyerliz wrote:
Admitting to it would've kept her job? Does she get brownie points for coming clean after the fact?
re. busses/trains..........
In the "old days", the sheeple lived either on a farm or in the cities and went from point (A) to point (B) and back again in the evening to home. Since then, many things have changed. One, the population is much more spread out with the advent of "suburbs", and NOT within the confines of a hub. What used to be a "seaboard", or a fairly typical straight (A) to (B) has no resemblance to current reality. Since today's work environment is a service economy, the routing is usually something like: Point (A) to (B) to (C), (D), (E), (F) for appointments, back to (B) and maybe (G) and (I) for two more appts. before returning to (A). Mass transit cannot be utilized by most as the US is not setup like NY. The oil companies, tire manufacturers and car interests saw to that in the 40s and 50s, so enough with the future mass transit - it's an old pipe dream - like a 4-finger $10 bag of killer dope.
Mexico is now cheaper for imports to US.
U.S. dumps China for Mexico - Nov. 3, 2009
Dawg,
Color me confused. The report from the NRC is from late last month, doesn't include costs associated with climate change, and focuses mainly on the external costs associated with air pollutants (human health, crop yields, damage to buildings, etc.).
Prolly not.
But I would have had some residual respect for her.
She was also researching Rutherford (spelled wrongly) and particles, and
some other homeworky stuff. However, she couldn't do the work either.
I've pounded that meme fairly hard and frequently here. The US will be a great place to invest in circa 2030 or so. Perhaps the decade-ahead-of-us trend will hold with Japan, and the Nikkei will be the mother of all buys in 2020 after their entitlement schemes have utterly collapsed. That would be nice. Sort of.
sdtfs wrote:
Politics, too. Connected areas can get more bus routes than they deserve. I saw that in San Francisco.
Well, maybe the mexicans can make a decent living there and stay home.
O/T, caveat emptor. Rumors from a dark corner of the Interwebs:
"From Thanksgiving until New Years, it should be a range bound global marketplace. I think if the Dow takes out 8800 by 3rd week of November, then the end of January may see a stunning and horrific stock market drop. A major deflationary gravity well, sucking everything down."
It is somewhat surprising that Japan's postal system authorities would resist MoF requests to buy more bonds.
Black Star Ranch wrote:
You need to get to the city more. Visit Chicago, Cleveland, Philly, Boston, just as much public transportation there. Public transportation is ONLY about moving LOTS of people during rush-hour. Nothing else. As we haven't live in a capitalist system for at least 50 years SO the government pays and decides how it works.
Haven't even played the pollution card yet.
But in principle, everything should try to pay for itself. Even bondholders should get something...they're not all
If you go to recovery.gov, the official stimulus website, you'll find that there has been $207 billion in stimulus spending through October 30, 2009 - including $84 billion in tax benefits, $52 billion in contract grants and loans, and $71 billion in entitlements. So even if we give my friend Jared Bernstein his highly flawed "one million jobs saved or created," that's $207,000 per job in an economy where the average wage is about $46,000. Not good. Wasteful and ineffectual spending. (In reality, tax credits are spending. For incentivizing, you need marginal tax-rate cuts.)
Ouch!
Mike Flynn of Breitbart's biggovernment.com notes that the government pumped $170 billion into the third-quarter economy. But GDP grew by only $150 billion. As I said, ineffectual spending.
as soon as we legalize drugs here and stop fueling their narcostate which kills dozens every day and terrorizes millions, that may be a possibility.
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
There's NO going back. WAY too late. We live in a socialist country and have for 50+ years. You can't go back because, like AIG, there's no way to unwind.
LL - Are you sure the website wasn't already on the computer from a prior user?
And could it have been she got to the site by mistake? I remember I tried to find Dick's Sporting Goods online. You can take it from there.
Just thoughts to ponder. But you were probably correct, and hopefully she'll think twice next time.
My daughter lives in Boston and doesn't own a car. Actually she doesn't have
a driver's license either.
And is the LAST PERSON ON EARTH under 86 to not own a cell phone.
I'm shocked that Japan's savings rate is so low. I wonder what caused it to fall off a cliff like that. I know they get almost no return on their savings, but Asians in general are some of the most conservative savers in the world.
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
More of a hoocoodanode global pause. The best we can do for now is get smarter. Anything more aggressive or passive than that is hubris.
Today's powerful move in gold/silver shows how hard it is to try to time these markets. I feel sorry for people who have been in gold/silver for months and then bailed out after it crossed 1020, looking for a pullback. They might get a pullback. Or they might not. There's a lot of conviction behind PMs. But I'm still cautious on miners at this point, except for SLW.
Whatever drove gold/silver higher and bonds lower today can't be good for stocks. So I feel the next shoe to drop will be lower stocks. But I can't predict when. I'm just trying to gradually get ready. Bought more SRS today and maybe more RWM tomorrow. No doubt about it, stocks are weakening by the day. No conviction in stocks.
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
Dood,.......people don't work in factories anymore..........many service OUTSIDE accounts and MANY live outside BIG cities.
I wonder if the U.S. taxpayers will now have to fund Opel, given that GM just announced that they have decided not to sell it.
rich - someone stated on the prior thread or 2 that this may be a groundswell for gold and it may drop in the next couple days. We'll see.
Edited for yet another typo. Jeesh.
As sure as I can be. I was on vacash for a week, but I found my stuff that I'd done
on that computer from the week before.
And this has never, ever happened before.
And she couldn't do the work. I couldn't trust her not to do her homework.
She wasn't getting any better. I found it easier to do it myself than give it to her.
El Lurko wrote:
As does the Sierra Club "True Cost of Gasoline" article. The SC listed studies were conducted in the early 90s before the political value of climate scaremongering was appreciated or exploited.
lawyerliz wrote:
SECOND to last!
Prominent Fla. Attorney Missing, Leaving Big Firm With Questions
Prominent Fla. Attorney Missing, Leaving Big Firm With Questions
By ROBERT KAHN
(CN) - Attorneys with Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, a 70-attorney international law firm based in Fort Lauderdale, say they learned "with surprise and sorrow" that managing partner/CEO Scott Rothstein "allegedly orchestrated a substantial misappropriation from investor trust accounts that made use of the law firm's name."
By the way, why don't we try to tap the geothermal energy of Yellowstone?
We may even keep it from blowing up for an additional 10 minutes.
Black Star Ranch wrote:
I donno, this is unreal. Everyday, the CTA busses and trains, and METRA trains are PACKED to the gills, moving millions of people INTO Chicago and back to the suburbs EVERY weekday, and have been doing so - under different corporate names - for at least 100 years. I'm not talking about THE FUTURE here. I'm talking NOW, today in fact, it's 5:50 pm now, the Union Station is JAMMED! How do you think people GET into the 3rd largest city in the US to work? On the train and bus.
I'm still here. Malpractice doesn't cover fraud.
Remember when Citicards hiked their rates to 29.99% recently for a lot of unsuspecting customers?
Well, I got a "preapproved" offer from them today for a 0% purchase or balance transfer rate until August, 2010 (which is after the new regs phase in). After that date, the rate goes to 16% (usual for them). I thought that was pretty contradictory to their prior move. Weird.
HollywoodHack : I'm confident that our struggle with aging demographics will be much, much worse.
Nobody's talking to me, but I suspect that this is a reason for ignoring the southern border. Much, much higher birth rates, unlike the Japanese who apparently still embrace purity.
lawyerliz wrote:
A few billion for steam turbines and a few billion more for distribution systems, maybe it will work Liz. Get's expensive when generation is so far away from the end users.
hmmmmmmm.
Fewer billions than that we've already wasted.
Think of the engineering knowledge!! Think of the extra people employed. Even if it failed we would
learn a whole lot, including maybe when it's due to blow up.
Apparently the past 20 years of economic decline prompted Japanese to use their savings. The book "Dogs and Demons" documents how Japanese consumer behavior has been different from the conventional wisdom.
.......OK,......lets say you're right in THAT regard............maybe 20% less packed due to the unemployment issue (unless you believe U-3) ? Doesn't that STILL make it a losing operation? Isn't it AmTrak that spends $32. per customer? What kind of "sound" fiscal policy is THAT?
lawyerliz wrote:
One time when we need to follow france - more nukes.
Of course it is, and the only part of W's platform which I liked was the generally open-borders mindset. The reality, however, is a little different than the ideal. Not every group values education to the same degree, which means that the kind of high-wage producing jobs which naturally flow from universities and r&d may not be in the cards in the future.
lawyerliz wrote:
Supposedly, the best place for thermal is in Australia. A huge amount of relatively calm hot-stuff just a few miles down. All we've got to figure out is how to get it (or the electricity) from there to here.
Lawyer Liz-
Did you have a chance to review the "Homeownership Can Be a Hightmare" thread earlier today?
USA Today link supported your position that cramdowns (in this case "voluntary" by the lender) were the only effective way to prevent strategic/ruthless defaults and keep homes occupied and maintained.
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
Nope, not even close. 2007 CTA Average Weekday Unlinked Trips 1,606,359. That translates into much less than half a million total people served. See for yourself: http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/pubs/profiles/2007/agency_profiles/5066.pdf
Whoa there. A lot of the lines built by developers were under subsidized and defunct within 5 years.
M wrote:
You must live in a flat place with a lot of traffic. I you lived in or near mountains, you would have a very different opinion.
Dawg,
Color me confused.
As far as I can tell, on transportation issues RD is only interested in ROI (return on investment), and has no interest in "externalities", of the type enumerated in that press release, which, after all, are government figures, and therefore not to be trusted.
Perhaps what goes around comes around. My nearby city is pushing for electric trolley, throwing back to the last line which was removed in favor of buses in the '50s.
What's surprising is to drive around the villages in the county and see the occasional historical marker discussing trolleys in the country, taking from ville to ville.
.....how about we figure out what we're going to do with the lethal toxic waste BEFORE we gather more? And don't say "stuff it in a hole" in MY backyard - unless you're willing to pay every resident of Nye County, NV, a BIG FAT royalty check every year for dealing with YOUR waste in THEIR backyard.
I know little about what the Citi 29% tempest in a teacup, but suffice it to say that not all cards have the same profitability/risk
instead of canceling the cards, they took the soft approach of raising the interest rates and encouraging people to sign up for more profitable cards, if they were in fact still a carduser Citi wanted to keep
Black Star Ranch wrote:
Harry Reid has your backside covered on that one BSR
Black Star Ranch wrote:
Going back around and around. Amtrak is an aberration. Like NASA. If either went away, nobody would notice, including the "budget". The US transportation system is completely and totally socialist. It has been for 70 years. Nobody knows what "the real cost is" anymore, of ANYTHING related to transportation because you can't unwind what IS already BUILT and in place. It's ridiculous to even talk about at this point.
The reality is NOW you've got socialism which is HOPELESSLY political. Deal with it. The squid owns your financial ass, the socialist own the rest.
Rob Dawg wrote:
Like the misrepresentation that buses reduce traffic? If they operate on busy streets and make a lot of stops, they make traffic much worse. If you compare traffic during transit strikes, you find that many streets flow much better. That tells you something about where the stops shouldn't be.
If the economy is even in a sluggish recovery next year, sales should increase to 12 million ... - CR
If we have already borrowed demand via C4C, and unemployment is still high, I can't see new car sales going up much, even in fleets. Used cars, bought by individuals, might have a blip.
If Japan's pension funds are selling domestic govt bonds, can Treasuries be far behind? I think not. Repercussions to follow...
Rob Dawg wrote:
DId you also check METRA? CTA is only one agency.
scone wrote:
C4C took those off the table for a number of cash strapped buyers
we haven't totally trashed the status of the greenback as an intl reserve standard... yet...
mp has a lot of concrete. I say we bury it in his backyard.
some investor guy wrote:
Yeah, try putting a few million more cars on the street and talk about traffic.
lawyerliz wrote:
Those issues are the big ones to me. Good workers and workers you can trust are worth a mea culpa here or there. However if you are paying someone who isn't, the porn is more like "Finally, a reason to get rid of you" situation.
If we have to have economic refugees in the US to take up all of that vacant space, Japanese ones would be fine with me. I've lived there.
Evidence? And where do these carpoolers park?
Do many people just call in sick during a strike, which usually doesn't last long?
some investor guy wrote:
And leave the tentacles and rape trains on the other side of the Pacific?!
replied to somebody about housing being a nightmare,
but my post was eaten. thanks I read it who ever you are
Are some of us here opposed to public transportation because it doesn't make a profit? Neither do fire and police protection, or for that matter, the military. Would you prefer a fire department that lets your house - or city - burn down, because it isn't making a profit? Extrapolate to the police and military. Blackwater instead of the military? Pinkertons instead of the police?
If your house is being burgled, call John Galt.
C4C took those off the table for a number of cash strapped buyers - T
I was thinking of next year, when unemployed people run out of benefits, and sell the car as a last resort in order to feed their families. Scary, actually.
I think all you transportation-arguers are wrong. All I see are descriptive accounts, stating various slices of how things are today. Yet no one is arguing that what we have today is optimal. So the statements should be normative, and prescribe how things should/could be.
.....LOL.....I don't "have" any such thing........us "poor" old people are coddled and undertaxed..........by design
As Mortgage 'Walks' Rise, Crisis Grows - Stephanie Armour, USA Today
Foreclosures in Q3 up nearly 23% from 2008 - USATODAY.com
A nurse came in and she sold her house & wanted me to look at the contract.
Not a
however, she's been a nurse for 19 years and got laid off
and hasn't been able to find another one. When nurses can't get jobs. . . . .
my post was eaten. - LL
Liz, if you sent kcoop a message about it, I'm sure he'd appreciate that.
pavel.chichikov wrote:
Yes, this is NOT about public transportation. It always come down the "one big happy group hug" brains and the "paranoid of outsiders" brains. Sadly, I know this, but I love hopeless arguments. I argued politics with my father until he died (not from arguing). Brains of different political types will almost NEVER agree on anything.
the first step of homelessness is living in a car, hopefully they can find a nice vacant untended house to takeover instead so they can afford to sell the car for money
Manheim Consulting | Current Monthly Index
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
Sure. METRA is a pimple. 272,209 Average Weekday Boardings. Something like 140,000 people most of whom are counted in the CTA figures as a single seat ride is the exception. http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/pubs/profiles/2007/agency_profiles/5118.pdf
Pavel, have you seen "A Serious Man" yet. The movie?
the first step of homelessness is living in a car... EHP
Well, around here the first step is sleeping on someone's couch, then sleeping in the basement, then sleeping around for money, then sleeping in an RV, and so on. This is after the car has gone the way of all things.
EvilHenryPaulson wrote:
I'll defend myself with this as being the perfect world that can NO LONGER exists. Image developers paying for their OWN transportation infrastructure going forward in the future, and how impossible it is:
The Van Sweringen brothers purchased the land of what is now Shaker Heights in 1906 intending to create a planned suburban community. They knew that the success of their plans depended upon the availability of streetcar service to downtown Cleveland, so they organized the Cleveland Interurban Railroad (CIRR). On October 27, 1911, with a population of only 200, the Village of Shaker Heights was incorporated, and two years later on December 17, 1913 the first section of the CIRR opened, 1.6 miles (2.6 km) from Coventry Road east down the median of the future Shaker Boulevard (then part of Coventry Road) to Fontenay Road (west of Eaton Road). The line connected to downtown Cleveland via a line along Coventry Road to the north to an existing streetcar line on Fairmount Boulevard in Cleveland Heights. On May 20, 1915 the eastern terminus was extended from Fontenay Road to Courtland Boulevard.
As construction progressed in Shaker Heights, the Van Sweringens realized that the connection to Cleveland Railway's streetcar system through Cleveland Heights resulted in a slow trip to downtown. They planned for a grade-separated right-of-way all the way to downtown that could significantly reduce travel times for commuters, and thus increase the desirability of their suburb. In 1915 they acquired a majority interest in the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (the Nickel Plate Road), mainly to allow for a line next to a relocated NYC&StL. The next section of CIRR opened in April 1920, running west from Coventry Road down the median of the new Shaker Boulevard to Woodhill Road, then across the Cleveland Short Line Railway (New York Central Railroad) and alongside a CSL branch to East 55th Street. West of East 55th Street, where the CSL branch crossed over the parallel Nickel Plate, the new streetcar line also crossed the Nickel Plate, continuing west between the branch and Nickel Plate, then up a ramp to the intersection of the Kingsbury Viaduct (East 34th Street) and Broadway. From there, the CIRR cars traveled along the tracks of Cleveland Railway's Broadway line, using street-running for the remainder of the trip downtown.
scone wrote:
Seriously? Having sex for room is after couch surfing and basement lurking but before sleeping in someone's RV??
Rob Dawg wrote:
I've forgetten why you even care.
I'm very supportive of public transit myself. There are just many real problems with implementing a mass transit system in a country whose oldest housing stock is 100-250 years old and where over half the development has occurred since 1950. It requires a different incentive system than in Europe where a newer home is less than 200 years old.
"It always come down the "one big happy group hug" brains and the "paranoid of outsiders" brain."
Not as far as I'm concerned. There are people who believe that they owe nothing to anybody, when in fact they are surrounded by a cocoon of publicly funded services without they might very well die. Water purification. Sewage. Garbage collection. Police and fire protection. EMT services. On and on.
That's not socialism - it's survival.
pavel.chichikov wrote:
They don't know anything else. Sadly, they don't know what they don't know too.
"Pavel, have you seen "A Serious Man" yet. The movie?"
NotaRealAmerican, I haven't seen any movie for quite some time.
some investor guy wrote:
Or, you can turn it around and look at places where bus transportation has been encouraged and auto travel discouraged. Such as my little town.
The downtown area used to be a great place to go shopping. Plenty of free parking, traffic fairly reasonable. Then, the city decided that people needed to use more buses. So they removed auto lanes, added bus lanes, reduced available parking, and raised parking fees. Now, the buses run almost empty, traffic is so bad that a dozen intersections are gridlocked much of the day, to the extent that they were forced to deploy a small army of white-gloved police to break up gridlocks. It's a total mess. I feel sorry for the retailers and CRE owners in downtown.
pavel.chichikov wrote:
I think you'd like it. You might want to rent the DVD when it come out.
Has some interesting thoughts on God, from a Jewish perspective - but I'm not Jewish and laughed my ass off during the movie. Was one of the best I've seen for awhile. I grew-up Catholic, so that's almost jewish from a quantity of guilt perspective.
Seriously? Having sex for room is after couch surfing and basement lurking but before sleeping in someone's RV?? - Y
Yes, because it's easy to break into an RV, so your stuff gets ripped off and you get beaten up and/or raped. Better to go to a "friends with benefits" arrangement than that.
at least nothing but the dead has died back in your little town.
sm_landlord wrote:
More socialism. Buses in small towns make no sense. But, as transportation hasn't been "costed" for 70+ years, the government decides. The squid win in the end, so Hu cares.
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
Many people work from home. Some people carpool, and in places like LA there are a number of companies with carpool spaces which usually sit empty.
LA has particularly poorly chosen routes and stops on the Westside. I suspect that residents put up a fight if buses start to operate on side streets. However, those buses cause a lot of problems on Wilshire and Santa Monica.
One thing has improved about public transit. More and more natural gas buses. The diesel used to make a mess, and wasn't good to breathe.
In my last comment referring to the Manheim Consulting | Current Monthly Index
...there is an interest chart of the average milage of compact cars sold at auction.
It has gone from 51k to 63k in the last 9 months. And no, it isn't seasonal. 63k is the highest number during the period covered by the chart, since Sep 06. [Note that 12k increase is greater than the average miles driven over that period. Remarkable!]
So the recession has people holding onto their cars longer (apparently much longer) and C4C destroyed a bunch more, driving prices up even in the face of a dismal economy.
Obligatory: This is inflationary, right?
EDIT: Excuse me if I accidently went on topic.
"Then, the city decided that people needed to use more buses. "
I live in the DC area, where people waste hours of their lives every working day, sitting in miles long parking lots called traffic jams. Often, they're injured or killed in 'accidents.'
Do we need more commuting and more cars? How would that hel?. The causes are complex, and the solutions probably unobtainable, at least in the short run, but we do not need more automobiles.
scone wrote:
Seriously, I had no idea that was how the pecking order went. I didn't have the "stuff" part in mind 'cause if you have no place surely have little stuff. Just goes to show how I am either not looking at the problem or lacking personal anecdotes to understand the dynamics in play.
.
How does that arrangement even work? Sounds like a really odd/stressful landlord/tenant relationship especially for the "tenant"
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
More example of misallocation of resources via government redistribution of productive effort. Transit is the public vehicle equivalent of C4C 24x7 for decades. The results are equally perverse. C4C bumped auto sales. C4T bumps transit ridership. Bad market signals are bad market signals.
How many people would be homeowners if we gave them free houses and subsidized 60% of the monthly expenses?
"I grew-up Catholic, so that's almost jewish from a quantity of guilt perspective."
Probably a toss-up.
pavel.chichikov wrote:
What is needed is the lowest cost and most convenient solutions, regardless of what it is. But, the type 1's & 3's are philosophically against "public" - unless it's already paid for and they happen to like it; then it's fine (duplicity always wins).
picosec wrote:
You aren't considering the cost to buy a car and the decreased amount of credit in the marketplace. Right now, the problem is people who can buy won't (or already have) and the people who can't buy loiter in the showroom.
.
Is it inflationary? It probably will be.
Are we there yet? No.
pavel.chichikov wrote:
One of my favorite programs to reduce traffic was seizing abandoned vehicles and those from drunk drivers with revoked licenses. More parking spaces for people who were actually driving, and fewer dangerous people on the road.
pavel.chichikov wrote:
Very few people killed in traffic jams, unless the accident they were in caused the traffic jam. This is because the energy in a collision is primarily a function of speed, since there's a ^2 exponent to speed in the equation E=1/2mv^2. The Boston area has lots of accidents due to congestion, but comparatively few deaths.
Part of the argument is whether taxpayer subsidies are always unfair/bad/inefficient.
I say it's a question of whether removing them is worse. Case-by-case. No one likes free-riders. Anyone who did not do a tour of combat duty is a free-rider. Anyone benefiting from the mortgage interest tax deduction is a free-rider. Anyone with access to cash at .25% is a free-rider.
The kid who hops the turnstile to go to the park for some exercise, him too.
some investor guy wrote:
The natural gas buses are a blessing - compared to the black-smoke belching monsters of yore.
But they are still incredibly noisy, which is a large part of why people don't want them on residential streets.
One day, I hope the transportation planners get clue about the insanity of running eighty-seat buses at 2% capacity. If they substituted commuter van-type equipment, they could run it on residential streets. And they can definitely run vans on NatGas, because they have already installed the fueling facilities to support the behemoth buses.
I recall RD telling us once some time back that there was a local bus that took his kids to the beach in the summertime for 25¢ that he didn't mind using, "because it was there". Go figure. I wonder what the subsidy was for that. I was particularly struck by that statement at the time, because it seemed to go against the main thrust of his argument.
"Very few people killed in traffic jams"
So the safest place to be in a moving car is a traffic jam? That's very encouraging.
if you have no place surely have little stuff. - y
Seriously? The homeless people here typically have at least 2 large shopping carts full of stuff. In Dignity Village, people have little houses full of stuff. The need to acquire stuff doesn't go away just because one has no money. And that type of poverty is "richer" than some others. Thailand springs to mind. On this planet, there is always a deeper level of hell into which one can fall.
One argument for public transit is that it increases property values. If I was grand poobah for a city, I would toll the freeways and stop charging fares on buses, thus eliminating the cost of collection and increasing ridership.
Rob Dawg wrote:
Well, that's the reality. When you figure-out a way to click your heals together and return us to perfect libertarian-land, please do so.
badger wrote:
Yes, in the immediate vicinity of the stops. But there is an equal or greater loss in the unserved areas, away from the stops.
In fact, the safest place to be during a traffic jam is a beaver pond.
.
.....I think it's being forced upon us all.........whether we like it or not.........sit back and enjoy the ride until then..........
scone wrote:
I'm not a "stuff" person just like I'm not a "photo album" person. If anything, every time I move I purposefully get rid of stuff because I realize it isn't adding value or convenient (or heck use) to my life. When I was more of a roamer, I tried to ensure that everything I owned could be moved by one person in one vehicle. Is that kind of lifestyle easy for many or even desirable? Probably not, but it made my life much easier.
I think the problem with a lot of public transportation is that buses pass as an acceptable form of public transportation to some people. Sure, separated grade rail can't go everywhere for everyone but neither can busses and busses don't alleviate congestion or pollution and are prone to the same drawbacks of operator error. Busses are the cheap ass half ass public transit option.
Black Star Ranch wrote:
^thinks of England^
^thinks of England^
^thinks of England^
...Ow.
^in pain, thinks of England^
^in pain, thinks of England^
^in pain, thinks of England^
".....I think it's being forced upon us all.........whether we like it or not."
Of course.
sm_landlord wrote:
It's only going to increase or decrease ANYTHING if public transit is convenient to the occupants of the property. Key-riste, there's nothing magic OR sinister about public transit. It's moves LARGE numbers of people from one spot to another. Period. That's IT.
E Thomas St. wrote:
No, buses are for poor people. The trains are generally for the middle-class.
barfly wrote:
I use subsidized transit myself. Says nothing about the issue. I doubt any refuses Prop 13 protection either.
Rob Dawg wrote:
The issue is socialism. Get rid of that, all your problems are solved.
pavel.chichikov wrote:
Jeezz, what did the beavers do to YOU!?
Buses in Phoenix burbs don't make sense. You usually have to walk 1/2 mile or more to a stop, in 112 deg heat in the summer. There are a few "park and ride" areas in the nicer areas that are useful if you work at the mall.
I did like the longer service hours. When people can get to work but not get home, doesn't help at all.
That's kind of an overly general statement that has no reflection on the differences that every city has.
http://zinyaw.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/crowded-train.jpg
http://deckchairdiaries.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/crowded-train-strange-pictures.jpg
yeah, the middle class.
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
Exactly. The private sector could easily invent things like the Internet without the pesky government interfering!
Rob Dawg wrote:
In Atlanta, the buses are not that expensive; it's the (unionized) drivers that really drain the system of money. The transit isn't subsidized, it's the union that's subsidized.
josap wrote:
Exactly. But, transit money, LIKE highway money has to be evenly divided. So, we have busses running every other hour in the sac suburbs, empty. But full other routes are over capacity. It's the government, there's NO OTHER way to do it.
Go drive a bus.
I use subsidized transit myself. Says nothing about the issue. - RD
then why is it such a hot button issue for you?
barfly wrote:
Also, any reference to CA in this discussion is a Dawg-win's Rule default. Just so you know.
E Thomas St. wrote:
No, it does. It's a huge complaint in LA right now. The new heavy-rail system is being built at much higher cost/seat than busses. Commuter trains are expensive to build and operation compared to busses. How cares about the poor tho. Not Hu.
The seasonal correction for adjusting new car sales drops dramatically for the next four months (i.e. will add to the actual sales). So even in good times new car sales would be expected to drop by 10-15% over that period.
" November 3, 2009
The board of General Motors voted to keep the company's Opel division rather than sell a majority stake to a Canadian car-parts manufacturer and the largest lending bank in Russia, Bloomberg reported Nov. 3. The vote sets aside an agreement to sell 55 percent of Opel to Magna International Inc. and Sberbank."
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
Hu cares about the poor in CA? Not Yu!
Buses on the West Coast are usually your only option since there was no urban planning or foresight.
barfly wrote:
Liberals. Nothing else. Global warming. Liberals.
merkel's running around with her hair on fire right about now. Oh for the video...
"Jeezz, what did the beavers do to YOU!?"
I have great respect for beavers. And, it seems, beavers have a great respect for us, too.
pavel.chichikov wrote:
Any pundits want to weigh in on this one?
it made my life much easier. - y
I'm not sure we're communicating. Voluntary 'simplification' of a middle class person's possessions has nothing to do with this kind of poverty. And most of these people probably thought they lived pretty modestly before they crashed. It really can happen to anybody.
All this talk about bus drivers and all of a sudden I can't get Ralph Cramden out of my mind.
pavel.chichikov wrote:
Gee, sell a few extra cars and suddenly you feel like you can take on the German and Russian governments.
E Thomas St. wrote:
LA has one of the best heavy-rail systems in the country right now. Generally, Chicago is considered as the best, then Boston (I think), then LA. This is Heavy Rail, not light-rail, subway, bus. Just heavy-rail commuter trains.
yagij wrote:
But then they would have to hire Al Gore!!!11!!
"merkel's running around with her hair on fire right about now. Oh for the video..."
She's just handed the Iranians an ultimatum by proxy. Seriously, either Iran caves or there's going to be trouble.
Here we go in circles again. Let's get a cut-rate union-busting bus-driver: I drive good.
Very fast. No health benefits, happy to have job. Will clean bus after. Let bus finance company pay bonus to financiers. No pension. I shoot self when i too old to drive bus.
id say it means that german UE rate isnt going to stay quite as low as they hoped. Unless of course they decide to leave these people on payroll too, and just have the govt pay them to play The Settlers of Catan like they are doing with a few million other folks.
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
It depends on the brain's political types. I think you'll find that many people on this site are MUCH more pissed out-of-their-minds at THOSE DAMN UNION BASTARDS than all the banksters and squidwards combined.
(Edit: they secretly worship the banksters)
scone wrote:
No, I'm saying if I found myself bad a$$ destitute I wouldn't lug around 2 shopping carts full of "stuff". I'm not saying my situation is similar to their situation, but refuting your "people want stuff even if they are homeless" comment.
Al is one smart cookie, didn't make a lot off of inventing the internet, but has gotten rich off of the invention of global warming.
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
There are no problems with demographics that death won't fix.
Buses make sense in the PHX burbs plenty fine. Use the scheduling software to plan your trip so you barely have to wait. Half mile walk is the max distance unless you're up north of Frank Lloyd Wright. In Tempe they have the orbital buses that cut the walk down that much faster. As a hub(light rail) and spoke(bus) system it works quite well in tandem.
DC tried robot [non-union] conductors:
CBC News - World - D.C. train in automatic mode at time of crash
We just need a few double deckers and public transportation will be hip.
But what else does LA have in terms of shorter trip public transportation beside buses? Rail for longer trips, buses for everything else = clusterfuck.
MaryAnn wrote:
Such an inconvenient truth...
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
[How many of your positions do I get to describe for you?]
Transit is an important issue because it is a leading indicator of what we can expect from similar policies as power devolves away from people through municipalities through States ultimately into the hands of a Federal bureaucracy with few enumerated but ever growing practical powers.
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
And they periodically crash at great cost in life and property. Not to mention that the tracks cross many streets at grade. Some communities have gone nuts when they run them past schools due to the hazards.
Example: The worst commuter train crash in forty years happened here recently.
Rail Line Says Train Ran Signal; Death Toll at 25 - NY Times
refuting your "people want stuff even if they are homeless" comment. - Y
I would suggest you go volunteer at a homeless shelter or at the food bank. Then you would see for yourself that most homeless people are either carrying around a lot of stuff, or they have it stashed somewhere safe. That's one reason it's sometimes hard to get people to go into shelters, because other homeless people rip them off. It's a recognized problem in the service community of people trying to help this population.
Catholic guilt centers on sex. Judaism is ok with sex--I think its a blessing,
but imposes guilt for everything else.
Jewish (present or former) have agreed.
The hub IS buying a new car, went and got approved at the credit union
and will give the old Saturn to the son who will get rid of his vershluggener
motorcycle.
Need to eat, And watch oldhunk Mark Harmon.
"Transit is an important issue because it is a leading indicator "
If it's such a leading indicator, and it indicates increased Federal power, how come it's so lousy in most places?
pavel.chichikov wrote:
LOL!
Transit is an important issue because it is a leading indicator of what we can expect from similar policies as power devolves away from people through municipalities through States ultimately into the hands of a Federal bureaucracy with few enumerated but ever growing practical powers. - RD
ahhh, now I see. The slippery-slope argument. Makes perfect sense.
Is a new car purchase classifed as "sex" guilt or "other" guilt?
Public transportation can't compete with the internet.
And why have so many places subverted expansion of it?
pavel.chichikov wrote:
How has your federal government been performing lately, Pavel?
Because la greve is illegal here. (As good as any)
E Thomas St. wrote:
It's got an IMMENSLY expensive light-rail system. Replacing a private light-rail system that was ripped up in the 60's.
broward wrote:
I knew of a guy who bought an Escalade only because his GF at the time said that she would do up in the passenger seat at any location of his choosing. He bought it for her. She kept up her part of the bargain. She then left him for another guy and moved to LA.
.
"Stupid is as Stupid does, Sir"
Hahahahahahahahahah.
But he's putting down a big down payment that he "saved up" The final straw was the locks wouldn't
unlock.
"How has your federal government been performing lately, Pavel? "
If the Federal government wanted to exert social control using transit, you'd think they'd make people dependent on federally controlled transit.
As GOP Holds Up Unemployment Extension, Nearly 200,000 Lose Their Benefits
As GOP Holds Up Unemployment Extension, Nearly 200,000 Lose Their Benefits
Zales Reports $190 Million Loss
Zale Reports $190 Million Loss - 2009-10-30 13:54:40 | JCK Online
"Catholic guilt centers on sex. "
Actually, on interpersonal relationships, of which sex is only one aspect.
pavel.chichikov wrote:
From the 50s forward, they wanted to make people dependent on Detroit, and it worked wonderfully. It isn't that the Feds don't have the power. It is just being directed towards places that don't immediately catch your eye.
Rob Dawg wrote:
Shoulda been worried about THAT when they started funding the freeways and airports, don't ya think. Kinda late now. Kinda like regulating the banks now that they burnt down the country in a deregulation frenzy.
Why does LA suck so much then? Why does NYC work while LA doesn't?
sm_landlord wrote:
Yeah, airplanes crash too. Sad. was there a point to that?
"From the 50s forward, they wanted to make people dependent on Detroit,"
Detroit was the passive bait goat?
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
My deaths are relevant to my point.
Your deaths are not!
.
I don't have to prove vanilla is better; just that chocolate is worse!
barfly wrote:
Variation of the domino theory.
pavel.chichikov wrote:
They convinced SF to mess up and stop their rather good public transit system, yes?
.
Besides, pork for autos helped many more areas of our economy than the rail system did. Hu can blame them?
E Thomas St. wrote:
Uh. I donno. you talking about taking the train? Or getting a pizza?
My sitting here waiting for the end of the world feeling went away,
but now it's ba-ack.
Nitely-nite.
yagij wrote:
Yes, in Marin county and Oakland. Was quite good for a private for-profit system.
About public transportation networks. Is LA not as bad as I remember it being 10 years ago?
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
Roads users and airport users are charged more than the costs for their infrastructure and operation. That's why there are gas taxes and passenger facilities charges and there aren't any of either on public transit.
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
When Hollywood takes money, they just always show a loss.
When NYC takes money, they show a big gain for a big bonus and then just get more gov't money.
E Thomas St. wrote:
No. Trains and light-rail is greatly expanded. Your government money (and Hu's) at "work".
Rob Dawg wrote:
Who built the first ones? Gas taxes and 747 fees?
Mayor Mike spent that on his campaign in less than 4 hours. But he makes it up in volume.
E Thomas St. wrote:
Because it's closer to Mexico.
I'm going to get a t-shirt made.
On the back a picture of Hu
On the front "I paid 11T for globalization and all I got was a lousy Hu mug"
My wife's t-shirt will have a finger next to "capitalist running dog"
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
Federal-Aid Highway and Highway
Revenue Act of 1956, Public Law 627, 84th Congress, approved June 29,
1956 SELF FINANCING:
To make the federal-aid highway program self-financing, the
Highway Revenue Act of 1956 (13) was incorporated as Title II of
this legislation that imposed new taxes and increased others
levied on highway users who directly benefitted from this
program.
Section 205 of this Highway Revenue Act authorized an increase in
the federal gasoline tax from two to three-cents per gallon for
the sixteen-year period from July 1, 1956, through June 30, 1972.
The FHWA has accurate records going back to 1921.
Don't even get me started on the periodic theft of the AvTF.
Or to put it another way: the average union worker suffered a huge wage cut in gold this year... (Knew we shouldn't have let him get on the net)
Rob Dawg wrote:
That's odd. I thought there were roads here before 1956.
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
Hardly surprising. You think roads are subsidized too. All we are doing is exploring the extent of those gaps in knowledge.
Interstates were created to make us dependent on Uncle Sugar, I guess?
E Thomas St. wrote:
No, for that you need subsidies. Kinda like transit then edukation and most recently asset prices.
You'd better be talking real dollars, sly dawg, or were the highways paved with glod?
Rob Dawg wrote:
Somebody is funding roads. And somebody has to fund getting large numbers of people "downtown" (whereEVER the city is).
It's the damn socialist to blame. If we just let every American have their god given right to drive alone in a 6000 pound 12 mph behemoth America could regain it's superpower status.
I blame the commies, greenies, fornicators and those who hate free market capitalism, the one true religion and the velvet guiding hand of the towering capitalists who made this nation great.
Full moon = extra grumpy commentariat?
"Every penny got paid back" but somehow the 1972 penny seemed a little smaller.
scone wrote:
Naaa. Just a political type brain debate. They are pointless but fun, because it's actually about each brain's "reality".
That's a feature!
yogi
I don't care what DC did, if it's grade separated you can easily run a good automatic system. Vancouver's metro opened in 1985 and has never had drivers. Probably the best safety record out there too. Might as well argue India should go back to banning the use computers again because humans could be doing the math, communication, switching, and storage instead
Sorry if we went over this earlier... any notion why CR didn't get invited to the Blogger Roast Beef Dinner?
And, no doubt, the sites are good, but Aleph and Across the Curve? Bond guys.
...humans could be doing the math, communication, switching, and storage instead - EHP
Mentats! Mentat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
EvilHenryPaulson wrote:
This is THE key thing. Many of the old systems aren't and probably can't be without huge expense. BART is, but still has "drivers". I don't know how you Canadians do stuff like that.
Section 205 of this Highway Revenue Act authorized an increase in
the federal gasoline tax from two to three-cents per gallon for
the sixteen-year period from July 1, 1956, through June 30, 1972.
and now we're up to a whopping 18.4¢. That barely keeps up with inflation.
NOTaREALmerican wrote:
They hire indians who can do the math and switching in their heads.
I don't know how much attention the public transportation people pay to network theory, but it's really a network problem, with some interesting dimensions.
Packet switched networks (which is transportation - the packet is the vehicle, goodput is the number of passengers, etc.), have lots of topology related inefficiencies, and in particular don't scale proportionally to traffic with large numbers of nodes.
This is a huge problem for the car networks, it is provably impossible for large cities to provide enough road capacity for all users, and that problem scales very badly with size. The other networks are more efficient, in the goodput sense of the useful traffic to packet ratio, so can theoretically handle larger user numbers, but the underlying issue doesn't entirely go away. If you build a really efficient transport network for a city, the most likely result is that you'll allow the city to increase in size to the point where it is no longer an efficient transport network. Also, although most cities have in some sense grown around their transportation network - as LawyerLiz pointed out, if you're a developer you want transport links - so it isn't necessarily an optimal design to begin with, especially in the cases where bribery was involved. Transport networks tends to be more optimal when they evolve fairly organically - unless the planners really know what they are doing - but the problem quite often in the older cities, is that it's optimal for a much lower population density, and different traffic pattern.
Population density, is a major part of the problem, and why it's very hard currently for the US to have the kind of inter-city train network that the Europeans have. Interestingly, the hub and spoke network topology that the airlines use there, is a fairly nice, efficient design (for the airlines, not necessarily for the individual passenger). But then the airlines have a lot more degrees of freedom for their routing decisions.
-- w
Do we know he wasn't?
barfly wrote:
True but we are more efficient and state matches have risen substantially and we have transitioned to more maintenance away from expansion. At that you re correct. We need anywhere from 5-12¢ more per gallon combined state/fed.
The girl is fired. She denied it.
Good for you LLiz, it's probably the best solution for you.
They've been saying that for months. Remember all that scary stuff about how the IMF would dump big tons of gold?
Well, they did. And there were buyers. Like I've been saying, there is accumulation in gold, and it's coming from several places. Don't bet against accumulation. Trading is not accumulation.
the beltway region, specifically the NoVa part of it, suffers from traffic in the same way that medieval royalty suffered from gout. that's what happens when you eat the meat and cheese that rightfully belongs to everyone else, the arteries get clogged.
think it was a left coast bias
I was aghast when I learned the counties with the highest per capita income in the US.
highest income counties ranked by household income
Terry,
The Opel deal is to be financed in Europe.
http://www.freep.com/article/20091103/BUSINESS01/91103062/1331/GM-to-restructure-Opel
Rob Dawg wrote:
And we need to figure out how to get 1m people downtown. Without knocking down all the neighborhoods in the path with at 50 lane freeway.
JP wrote:
Why?