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

[Fred Schneider]

The beauty of the computer is that we can all respond to an e-mail, and then delete it
before we send it rather than stir up trouble.  I did that with Derrick's response.  But
this is too close to the truth to ignore.  I admire what Ken had to say.

People in the southwest do keep cars longer ... no potholes ... no body cancer.  My
friend Don Duke drove his 1967 Dodge Monaco until the dealer was forced to find a machine
shop to build parts for it.  He gave up around 600,000 miles and bought a Ford Taurus.
But he knew that, in spite of periodic heavy maintenance, it was still cheaper than a new
car because the body and engine were still sound.

Go back and read Ken's fourth paragraph, beginning with, "As you noted, private
autos...."   Bruce Bente was once telling me about a man complaining how bad the drive
was from the north side of Chicago to the Pullman-Standard factory on the north side.
Traffic was terrible.  The drive was getting longer every month.   Bruce suggested that
he could very easily use the elevated. And it would be much faster.   The man's response
was, "I can smoke my cigar and fart in my own car.  I will never take the el."  I think
that gentleman summed up a lot of us.  We can listen to our own music (no one can
complain about Johann Sebastian Bach on the Organ at Riverside Cathedral in my car), pass
gas, drink coffee without being arrested (I know I'm on soft turf here), talk on the cell
phone in most states and cities, and do other thinks too wild to mention except on
reality television.    And have we also forgotten all those things that happened in the
back seat during the male-female interface?   Remember a man without a car is a man
without a woman!   My father knew the rules about having an automobile when he courted my
mother in 1930.  If dad didn't have that Model A, I wouldn't be here.  Mom knew all about
cars because Grandpa owned them back in the middle 1920s.   Transit is great but
certainly not an end all.   I doubt that it ever will be unless we again ration gasoline
to 3 1`/2 gallons a week.

fws



Ken & Tracie wrote:

> 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.
>
>

xxx