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<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'> <BR> <BR>So how much of the world's oil do the Germans consume, and how much do they produce?? What about Japan?? Or China?? Or Italy?? Or France?? <BR> <BR>And how does that compare with U.S. - not in 2009 or 2010, but in 2013. <BR> <BR><br> <BR><div>> From: fwschneider@comcast.net<br>> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 22:39:50 -0500<br>> To: pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org<br>> Subject: [PRCo] Response to Calgary vs Pittsburgh ... and on to London (part 1)<br>> <br>> I don't have a problem with huge metro area cities. We've tried it in a few places but the last truly large city to merge with the surrounding county was Philadelphia City/County and that was about 100 years ago and it really needs to merge today with about eight more counties in three states to restore the balance. Other examples would be Louisville and Nashville which merged with their surrounding counties. But we do not do it enough because the suburbanites don't want to be part of helping anyone different.<br>> <br>> But then, Herb, if you wish to look at the entire regional picture...<br>> <br>> Well, then, that would make the Pittsburgh population about 1.2 million … about the same as Calgary so PAT, using the same logic should be hauling about 600,000 daily riders. Correct? They handle about 215,000 …. about 1/3rd of what the same size city in Canada would generate. <br>> <br>> I wish I had similar data for European or Chinese or Indian cities to share. Might be a real revelation. <br>> <br>> The scary thing to me is how much oil we use up using our cars and living 10 or 20 or even 100 miles from our jobs while the people in more sensible countries are willing to live much closer to work.<br>> <br>> Consider these factoids: <br>> <br>> If we are talking proven supply, we have about 1.57% of the world's oil. A friend of mine who kept close tabs on it<br>> claimed we had a pretty good idea of most of the world's supply except for Russia and they played their numbers <br>> close to the vest. Sometime early in the 21st century the supply curve should peak and begin to decline while the <br>> demand curve will continue to grow … good reason for another war. You have; we want.<br>> <br>> We are producing 9.97% of of the world's oil. (9.9 million barrels a day) That shows if we have less than 2% of the<br>> oil and we are producing 10% it, we are using up what we have at one hellish rate. Part of that is fracking, or as one<br>> person put it, "sweeping the dust out the corners of an empty room." <br>> <br>> Consumption? We use up 20.5% of the world's oil consumption (every day --- around 20 million barrels). <br>> Last time I researched it, the only major nation that used more oil per capita than us was Canada, and<br>> they need a lot more for heating because their average person lives a lot farther north than most of our people.<br>> So we pump 10 millions out of the ground and use 20 million every day. Duh. How long is this going last <br>> without another war? <br>> <br>> I remember, guys, when the army put me in Germany back in 1959-1961, the average German had no automobile. Only the very rich and those who needed one in business like a doctor or the plant supervisor or a salesman might have had access to a car. A buddy of mine from the local NRHS chapter … and this goes back to when I was in high school … described the train service in Britain in 1957 and 1958 as intensive as it was here in the 1930s. Why? Because Europe had two back-to-back world wars and the important thing was to rebuild the homes and infrastructure first, not worry about unimportant things like cars, radios, refrigerators, televisions. England had food rationing from World War II right up to 1954, then it hit them again in the Suez conflict in 1958. So automobiles were not important in the 1940s and 1950s … eating was. Those luxury things came in the 1960s and 1970s. But even so, the last time I checked, the average commuting to work in the US was about 1 percent by public transportation but in Germany it was still around 30% in the beginning of the 21st century. <br>> <br>> Now I am going to admit that sometimes when you try to prove a point, you can't do it. Or perhaps you cannot find what you want to make an issue or a statement or you can't bark quite as loudly as you want with the facts at hand. I started trying to prove how many people were hauled by public transport in a place like London, England by the subways compared to New York City. I thought I could prove that as wedded to public transport New York is, London is even more so. It turned into one of those o shit moments. It turned out that London is more so but not far far more like I thought. London and New York are both cities of about 8.3 million people. The populations are comparable. So I would have expected the transit in London to haul the same or more, especially because London has a congestion tax if you are dumb enough to drive a car there.<br>> <br>> Well I found 2.540 billion annual subway riders in New York and only 1.230 billion annual riders on the Underground in London. What? Even if I add in the Docklands light rail (300,000 a day), I only kick it up to 1.300 billion a year. Can that be right? Then the light dawned. I'm missing half the city of London. The tube services only the north side. If you want to go to the south side, that is the preserve of the commuter railroads. <br>> <br>> Then another light dawned … London's buses haul 6 million riders on a weekday compared to 2.6 million in New York … <br>> <br>> So even without the commuter rail on the south side of London, we are now up to 3.32 billion transit users in London and 3.1 billion in New York.<br>> <br>> Using another source to derive the commuter train passengers suggests we might have around 3.6 million public transport commuters in the inner sectors of London compared to 3.1 billion in New York …. in one year. The bus and rail riders coming into the capital outnumber the auto passengers by almost 2 to 1. The transit passengers are climbing and the auto riders are dropping. <br>> What the s**t are we doing wrong???? <br>> <br>> BUT WITH ALL MODES, WE STILL HAVE AROUND 72% OF THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN LONDON USING MASS TRANSIT ON WEEKDAYS AND 62% IN NEW YORK CITY ASSUMING THE SAME SHARE OF THE RIDING IS ON WEEKDAYS. (I divided the annual total by 300 to get weekdays.) And for PAT's service area? It's less than less than 1 percent. So Herb, I am really less than impressed with Brownsville Road or Fifth or Brighton or Murray. We still have 99% of the public using their cars in Allegheny County. We're still trying desperately to use up the world's oil.<br>> <br>> http://londontransportdata.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/weekday-morning-peak-travel-into-central-london.png<br>> <br>> <br>> On Nov 9, 2013, at 5:56 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:<br>> <br>> > Canadian cities are just about all on a "metropolitan area" government. No<br>> > suburbs, just one big city, hence larger population figures. Something the<br>> > US missed the boat on...............oh dear, such "Thoughts of Socialism"<br>> > coming from my mouth.<br>> > <br>> > As far as "crowds boarding buses at every corner", you apparently haven't<br>> > been along Brownsville Road, Fifth Avenue, Brighton Road or Forbes and<br>> > Murray Avenues in Pittsburgh lately. Same thing every weekday/.<br>> > <br>> > <br>> > On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 5:19 PM, Fred Schneider <fwschneider@comcast.net>wrote:<br>> > <br>> >> Ah, but the Canadians live a much more compact live than the people south<br>> >> of you.<br>> >> <br>> >> Up north you don't have this same concept that I'm better than Jose so I<br>> >> must live in a 3,000 square foot house on a 3 acre lot in a gated<br>> >> community. Even in small towns you can have bus service which would be<br>> >> impossible in the USA because people still live in smaller homes lined up<br>> >> along streets. Maybe it comes from the idea that it costs money to heat<br>> >> a 3,000 square foot house so that a 1,000 square foot house using the<br>> >> neighbor's property as a wind break is a better deal.<br>> >> <br>> >> Example, the bus system in your provincial capital hauled 28 million<br>> >> riders last year. That's around 11,000 on a weekday. BARTA in Reading,<br>> >> PA had 3 million. Both cities have around 80,000 population. I remember<br>> >> standing downtown in Victoria BC in the evening rush hour in 2007 … crowds<br>> >> boarding buses at every corner. Unreal by US standards.<br>> >> <br>> >> And you guys want a real jolt? Calgary, Alberta has a population of<br>> >> about 1.1 million. Their total system ridership is about 548,000 fares<br>> >> (considering we need to ride in and out every day, that's one out of every<br>> >> four Calgarians rides mass transit). And 285,000 a day are on light rail<br>> >> trains!!!!!! That is the second highest light rail riding in North<br>> >> America. Yeah … go to Montana … middle of no where … turn right and go up<br>> >> the front range about 150 miles.<br>> >> <br>> >> <br>> >> <br>> >> On Nov 9, 2013, at 2:42 PM, TEP wrote:<br>> >> <br>> >>> <br>> >>> On 09/11/2013 09:22, Herb Brannon wrote:<br>> >>>> ...........<br>> >>>> One the cloudy side, why doesn't PATransit try to get money to extend<br>> >> some<br>> >>>> of the Pittsburgh lines? The PAT management doesn't seem too interested<br>> >> in<br>> >>>> running a good transit system. Service levels are no where near what<br>> >> they<br>> >>>> were when I worked at PAT.......<br>> >>>> <br>> >>> <br>> >>> Because capital and operating subsidies come from different pockets. PAT<br>> >>> could build all it wants--but have no money to operate any new lines--or<br>> >>> the existing lines for that matter.<br>> >>> <br>> >>> I live in Vancouver. The Urban area is around the same population as<br>> >>> Greater Pittsburgh. Our three rail lines carry half a million passengers<br>> >>> a day. Peak headways down to four and six car trains every ninety<br>> >>> seconds. Service at least every five minutes until 1:15 am. Plus the 5<br>> >>> train peak only commuter rail. Use it or lose it.<br>> >>> <br>> >>> Tom Parkinson<br>> >>> <br>> >>> ADVISORY: The Telus spam filters may block legitimate email<br>> >>> <br>> >>> *Transport****Consulting**Limited *<br>> >>> <br>> >>> Tom Parkinson P.Eng, Vancouver BC Canada 604-733-5430, cell 604-733-5437<br>> >>> <br>> >>> <br>> >>> <br>> >>> <br>> >>> _______________________________________________<br>> >>> Pittsburgh-railways mailing list<br>> >>> Pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org<br>> >>> https://mailman.dementix.org/mailman/listinfo/pittsburgh-railways<br>> >> <br>> >> <br>> >> <br>> >> <br>> >> <br>> >> _______________________________________________<br>> >> Pittsburgh-railways mailing list<br>> >> Pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org<br>> >> https://mailman.dementix.org/mailman/listinfo/pittsburgh-railways<br>> >> <br>> > <br>> > <br>> > <br>> > -- <br>> > Herb Brannon<br>> > *In Pittsburgh...*<br>> > *......the Greatest City In The U.S.*<br>> > Let's Go Pens<br>> > Let's Go Steelers<br>> > <br>> > <br>> > <br>> > -------------- next part --------------<br>> > An HTML attachment was scrubbed...<br>> > URL: http://mailman.dementix.org/pipermail/pittsburgh-railways/attachments/20131109/ab9c8a79/attachment.html <br>> > _______________________________________________<br>> > Pittsburgh-railways mailing list<br>> > Pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org<br>> > https://mailman.dementix.org/mailman/listinfo/pittsburgh-railways<br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> -------------- next part --------------<br>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...<br>> URL: http://mailman.dementix.org/pipermail/pittsburgh-railways/attachments/20131111/80367f2e/attachment.html <br>> _______________________________________________<br>> Pittsburgh-railways mailing list<br>> Pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org<br>> https://mailman.dementix.org/mailman/listinfo/pittsburgh-railways<br></div> </div>
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