[PRCo] Re: PATrain

[Fred Schneider]

I'm supporting you Derrick, not arguing.   

There was one chap in my office ... a rather nice chap ... who decided to take the bus to work instead of driving.   He was telling me how much more comfortable it was compared to fighting traffic every day.   Later on the secret came out.   PennDOT had his drivers license for consuming too much grain alcohol and driving.   

Must have been a habit the poor chap was unable to break.   He died in his 40s.  

I also remember a conversation I once had with Frits van Dam.   Frits, who died this winter, had worked for the Dutch Ministry of Transport where his job was to establish fare policy for all of Holland.   I think this conversation might have taken place about 1978.   At any rate, he pointed out that the extensive rural bus service in Holland was maintained essentially for the kids who didn't have automobiles.   I will not object if someone corrects me but I think many of the countries in Europe had a 20-year-old minimum driving age for automobiles until the European Union reduced it to 18 if you became a member nation.    I know that Germany was 20 for cars and 16 for motor scooters, motor bikes and very small displacement cycles.  So there was an extensive rural bus service for the kids 20 and under and the very old who had to get around without cars.   If you were between 20 and 70, you got into your own automobile and drove off.  

The problem is academic.  Private companies do not have the money to provide a transportation network for kids 15 and under, the handicapped, adults too old to drive, and adults convicted of crimes resulting in loss of their licenses.   Furthermore, the politicians or parasites or whatever you want to call them encourage the voters to tell them, "I won't reelect you if you do provide this service for them."   The pols are pretty good at finding things the electors don't like and seizing the opportunity, such as our Presidential candidate from Pennsylvania suggesting that Puerto Ricans should be forced to learn and speak English.   

Did any of you see the proposals by the Port Authority to drop the 40 Mt. Washington and 44 Knoxville bus routes?   I guess they figure there are not enough people who can fight or those people are not rich enough to donate to the political coffers.   


On Mar 18, 2012, at 11:50 PM, Derrick Brashear wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 11:47 PM, John Swindler <j_swindler at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>  The migration away from the river bottoms started several decades before the auto.  That's why Pittsburgh had inclines and cable car lines.  My ancestors moved from the lower Hill to Oakland around 1890, over a decade before the Model T appeared.  And the towns were in the river bottoms because that is where the rivers were for barge traffic.  The railroads came later. But you are right about the word "convenient".  That's how the auto won the competition with mass transit - except when it is not "convenient" such as too many autos.
> 
> Or you're blind/handicapped/inebriated/underaged/etc.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Derrick
> 
>