[PRCo] Re: Europe vs USA

[Fred Schneider]

Correctemundo.  We'll just have to move him across the desert.

On Jul 7, 2008, at 2:07 PM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:

> Ken would most certainly have a problem if you put him in  
> Reno...since his house, family and employment are all in Las Vegas.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org  
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of  
> Fred Schneider
> Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 2:03 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Europe vs USA
>
> Yes, Bob, you can walk to the Acme, providing you make ten separate
> trips to hike home with the week's groceries.   You'll never get fat
> that way.   Seems to me that Acme will be a good two-mile round trip
> for you.
>
> This nation is populated with two groups of people ...
>
> 1)  My friends in northern New Jersey and another one who lives two  
> blocks from PATCO and who think they can both go almost everywhere  
> on mass transit.  These are the urban types.  I saw some of that
> yesterday.   Hudson Bergen Light Rail was running a 7 1/2 minute
> headway on the south end of the line on Sunday afternoon with  
> standing loads.  I was astonished by the number of people who  
> boarded my West End - Tonelly Avenue car at Pavonia stop who had  
> been shopping at the mall ... and 90 percent of them got off at  
> Bergenline Avenue ... most of them spoke Spanish.  Middle class  
> people whom none
> of us would mind having in our neighborhoods.   These are the people
> who really aren't going to have a problem as gasoline goes to $6 and
> $8 and $10 a gallon.
>
> 2)  The rest of us.  I like to refer to the east as a 200-mile-wide  
> belt of suburbs that stretches from Bangor or Lewiston, Maine to the
> North Carolina border.   If you want to argue that it goes to the
> South Carolina border, I might easily concede the point.   Within
> that belt are a few cities where mass transit works ... Boston, New  
> York, Philadelphia and Washington.  I'm even ruling out Baltimore
> because it has become a suburb of Washington.   For most of us in
> that belt, like Bob and me, transit just isn't an option.  Of if I  
> want to go to the library to read old newspapers, I can walk to the
> corner and ride the bus free into Lancaster.  Great.   But if I want
> to buy groceries, go to the any one of a half dozen doctors, go to  
> church, the mall or any of my favorite restaurants, I need a car or
> my bicycle.   Lybarger has the same problem.  So does Ken Josephson
> out in Reno.   I suspect that Mark does knowing what I do about
> Jacksonville.
>
> Look at the U. S. census for commuting to work patterns.   For the
> last forty years only about 1 percent of the U. S. A. used public
> transit to get to work.   The rest of us could not do it and in some
> cases chose not to.   I was told of one man who made his living
> building transit cars for Pullman Standard who refused to ride the el
> across Chicago because, as he put it, "I can fart in my own car."
> I'm sure he wasn't alone.
>
> On Jul 7, 2008, at 9:17 AM, BobDietrich wrote:
>
>> We can kick this around all we want comparing prices and wondering  
>> why
>> people insist on driving.  The truth is the AAA and government  
>> made it
>> that way.  This is the land of wide open spaces and the  
>> infrastructure
>> was build so get there.  I don't know about many of you but I can't
>> get anywhere without a car - well I can walk to the Acme (grocery
>> store).  The closest bus is at least two miles and it is one of those
>> infrequent, unreliable, mini-busses.  I suppose I could move into the
>> city but that would only get me close to public transit, it would do
>> nothing for the other 200 million drivers and their 250 million cars.
>>
>> I think I'll go back to something I can accomplish, like building a
>> model of a PRCo car.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of
>> Jerry MATT Matsick
>> Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 9:00 AM
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Europe vs USA
>>
>> Fred
>> Appears that Americans are still thinking individualism in wanting to
>> drive their own vehicles as it proved that over the 4th of July
>> holiday,  Americans are willing to pay whatever it takes so that they
>> may drive their own cars, however I have cut back my driving by
>> more than 50%.   As a local editorial stated, if Americans are
>> willing to pay $ 4.00 bucks
>> for a pack of cancer sticks they most certainly will pay whatever it
>> takes to move their butts around the city, state or country.
>> Public transportation is just not wanted in this country.   Amtrak
>> stinks and is terrible.
>> This was caused by poor decisions by a Government that doesn't care
>> about providing transportation that is affordable and inexpensive.
>> I look at these new "low floor" buses running "empty" all over
>> Jacksonville and say what
>> a waste!    I love to watch the International House Hunter program
>> on HGTV and laugh
>> at the prices people pay in Berlin and Paris for 500 sg ft flat
>> compared to what an American pays for a 2500 sg ft home with 3 CAR
>> garage  and say voila it all balances out.
>> --
>> From the RIVER CITY by the Sea!
>> Oh for the simple life of riding a Street Car!
>> Jerry "Matt" Matsick
>> J A C K S O N V I L L E, Florida !
>>
>>
>> -------------- Original message from Fred Schneider
>> <fwschneider at comcast.net>: --------------
>>
>>
>>> Regarding the discussion about gasoline in Europe being $9.00 a
>>> gallon. I had a conversation with my German friend this afternoon
>>> in which we crunched numbers a different way. How long does a
>>> person have to work, on average, after taxes in Germany in the U. S.
>>> and in Germany to buy a gallon of gasoline. We both wrote down our
>>> answers for the average working man. In both cases he and I had
>>> numbers close to 20 minutes! He also pointed out that a huge tax
>>> bite has been added to diesel oil since I was over there last  
>>> October
>>> making it slightly more expensive than gasoline instead of
>>> significantly cheaper in German and Austrian markets, which in turn
>>> is shifting the market for automobiles. Last October 70% of the
>>> cars titled in Germany were diesels.
>>>
>>> But my friend did admit that the only reason he could afford to take
>>> two vacations in the United States within twelve months ... long
>>> vacations that is ... was because our dollar is so weak. We rode
>>> the Hudson Bergen Light Rail today. I was paying 95 cents a pop for
>>> senior tickets. He was effectively getting the same thing because
>>> the dollar was so weak against the Euro ... he was paying about Euro
>>> 1.15 for a $1.90 adult ticket. I think he had something like a $90
>>> room at the Newark Airport Days Inn which, in Euros is about 55. A
>>> similar hotel in Germany today might be 100 Euros. It's a great
>>> bargain for our friends from over there who come here. To him
>>> that's like me paying $45 for Motel 6 in Washington PA!
>>>
>>> His token gift for coming to see him was a copy of the Munich coach
>>> repair shop. As the Northern Bavarian General Superintendent for
>>> German Rail, this man is responsible for running 800 passenger  
>>> trains
>>> every day. That coach repair shop maintains the cars. It is just
>>> a small part of the German fleet. I asked how many coaches does
>>> Deutschebahn run ... he said he thought the number was somewhere
>>> around 12,000 including DMUs and EMUs. I think that is just a few
>>> more than Amtrak plus MBTA, Caltrans, Metro North, SEPTA, Metro  
>>> Dade,
>>> Chicago's METRA, Los Angeles, New Jersey Transit, etc., etc. And
>>> Germany only has a population of 80 million people to our 330
>>> million.
>>>
>>> While I'm giving the bad news, I'm also trying to tease Mark into a
>>> vacation because I know he wants to see it......
>>>
>>> And until you see it, you just cannot imagine such things as a  
>>> center
>>> city commuter tunnel in Munich with S-Bahn (suburban) commuter  
>>> trains
>>> dashing through downtown at 50 mph (ooops, 80 km/hr) on 2 minute
>>> headways. It is just beyond the comprehension of most Americans who
>>> would be prone to say, "It can't be done."
>>>
>>> fws
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jul 6, 2008, at 9:46 AM, John Swindler wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I don't know why you would say that the American dollar is
>>>> worthless, Fred. Apparently didn't stop Dennis from visiting Paris
>>>> and Rome, and we are already considering a second trip to Europe
>>>> this year. And Phil and his wife were in Spain/Portugal just a
>>>> couple months ago. There are some great deals out there - and they
>>>> are priced in American dollars.
>>>>
>>>> John
>>>>
>>>>> From: fwschneider at comcast.net> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Why did
>>>>> trolleys take the business?> Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 08:58:04 -0400>
>>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org> > However, Dennis,> >
>>>>> remember that the American dollar is > worthless. When the Euro
>>>>> was first created it was deliberately > issued on par with the
>>>>> dollar .. one for one. The dollar has > slipped to the point where
>>>>> it now costs more than $1.60 to buy one > Euro. So 1 Euro 54 per
>>>>> gallon in terms of the hours an Italian needs > to work is cheaper
>>>>> today than our $4.00 a gallon. About $3.75. > And you probably
>>>>> noticed that most people are driving diesels because > #2 diesel
>>>>> in earning power over there equates to about $3.25 and gets > 50
>>>>> miles per gallon. We're the ones being screwed, not them.> > I'm
>>>>> leaving in a few minutes to have dinner with a friend who is an >
>>>>> executive in Munich with German Rail. He vacations here twice a >
>>>>> year because the exchange rate is so good that he "can buy the
>>>>> whole > U. S." I could!
>>>> not get angry when he said that because I could > remember back
>>>> in 1959 when the dollar was worth four times the German > Mark in
>>>> spending power. And I know John Swindler remembers when he > earned
>>>> more in a few days driving a bus in Chicago than a London > subway
>>>> motorman earned in a month. But that has all changed.> > Fred the
>>>> Third> > On Jul 6, 2008, at 7:53 AM, Dennis F. Cramer wrote:> > >
>>>> Henry Ford gave the country what it wanted, or at least he > >
>>>> convinced us that> > is what we wanted; Independence. The
>>>> streetcars gave us the first > > suburbs> > and then the post WWII
>>>> housing boom created suburbs to the suburbs > > and we> > just
>>>> continued to grow. The peak of the electric age was circa > > 1918
>>>> and> > peak bus ridership was in the early 1950's. Our country
>>>> continued > > to move> > farther and farther away due to incredibly
>>>> cheap fuel prices and > > now we are> > beginning to see the
>>>> mistakes that were made.> >> > We got spoiled and now want to
>>>> complain. The talk!
>>>> everywhere is > > about the> > price of fuel, but I see few
>>>> people pa
>>>> rking their large vehicles. > > There was> > a brief bit on the
>>>> news this morning that a developer is making > > condos out> > of
>>>> the old Horne's and Murphy buildings in Pittsburgh because > >
>>>> people are> > wanting to move back into town.> >> > I just got back
>>>> from Italy and fuel there is 1.54 Euros a litre. > > That comes> >
>>>> out to about $9.00 a gallon at the current rate. A Ford Focus is a
>>>>>> large> > car and flying into both Paris and Rome show few
>>>> sprawling suburban > > areas> > like we have. I bought a 24 hour
>>>> pass on the Rome system for 4 > > Euros. That> > covered bus,
>>>> Metro, trams and their regional rail line; much > > cheaper than a>
>>>>> taxi at morning rush.> >> > Europe and Asia want more fuel than
>>>> ever before. Our gas is still> > relatively cheap and we still are
>>>> unhappy. When I started working > > 33 years> > ago, gas was close
>>>> to $2.00 a gallon and it has doubled. My salary > > went up> > over
>>>> 7 times in the same position. Is the glass half full or half > >
>>>> empt!
>>>> y? I> > have had a wonderful weekend: drove home from Delaware
>>>> County on > > the 4th,> > played a wedding with my quintet in
>>>> Clarion and came home to barbecue> > outside on the 5th; and will
>>>> finish the weekend off today by > > driving 120> > miles round trip
>>>> to volunteer at PTM. Now if I can just get Air > > France to> > get
>>>> my luggage to me from Paris I will come home to a much more > >
>>>> relaxed> > wife.> >> > I bought a new Nikon D60 before I left for
>>>> Europe and have posted > > the raw> > images here:> >> > http://
>>>> picasaweb.google.com/altotrombone> >> > Dennis F. Cramer> >
>>>> Trombone> >> >> >> >> >
>>>> _________________________________________________________________
>>>> It’s a talkathon – but it’s not just talk.
>>>> http://www.imtalkathon.com/?source=EML_WLH_Talkathon_JustTalk
>>>>
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