[PRCo] This "Car Talk" Makes me Wonder....

[Ken & Tracie]

Okay Derrick, get ready to take away my PC.

I'm still wondering about that guy from New England who was with us briefly a year or
so ago? Remember the "80 mph race" between a Route 87 PCC and his dad's bone stock
'36 Chevy? ;-)

No road salt here in the desert. Tracie drives a '99 Toyota Sienna (the one we used
the night you were here.) I drive a '59 Plymouth until the temperatures soar above 95
degrees. Then I use the '66 Chevy pick up. The latter guzzles gas, but at least the
air conditioning is ice cold. The Plymouth doesn't have A/C nor tinted glass.

As you have noted, private autos have become so sophisticated, you simply drive 'em
150,000 plus miles and then throw 'em away. Waiting in crawling rush hour traffic in
your own car, listening to what you want to hear, or having a form of private time is
preferable over mass transit to many people, even if the latter offers faster travel
times,  no driving hassles and no parking worries. Today's private automobiles are
extremely comfortable, even if you are just sitting in a traffic jam. This is a
reality that we must face.

There is no traction in this town unless you count the new monorail (which I am still
trying to find some technical information for you and Ed Tennyson.) But when I ride
the bus, sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person onboard who doesn't have glazed,
red eyes, who doesn't smell like alcohol and has a complete set of teeth. The
argument that you can catch up on work while riding doesn't hold much truth when
you're too wary to open up your lap top....

When I visit Pittsburgh,  it appears the majority of the South Hills light rail
riders are middle to upper middle class. On the last day of Drake service, one South
Hills resident told me he was afraid that upgrading the Drake line to light rail
standards and re-establishing service to Downtown might result in "undesirables"
finding their way into Bethel Park and other South Hills boroughs and townships. I
mentioned that the line had always reached Downtown until recent years. He countered
that the expanded mall and other shopping areas would encourage young people from
"bad" neighborhoods to hop on the "T" and "invade" the South Hills to stir up
trouble.

This perception has helped kill light rail proposals in several big cities. There are
white people in Long Beach who blame the Blue Line for bringing violent elements of
South Central L.A. into their community. And there are African-Americans from Watts
and Compton who blame the Blue Line for the influx of Latinos in their traditionally
black communities. Other activists claim L.A. light rail is being established to
whisk the more affluent through poor neighborhoods, while the poor have to depend on
inferior bus service over L.A.'s surface streets. And we thought Pittsburgh's transit
politics can be nasty..... :-/

K.

Fred Schneider wrote: