Re: Cars make more economic sense than transit: fact

["Robert Hudson" <manaz_d@hotmail.com>]

Yeah, well in Sydney, you get to stand up on a rickety old train, sniffing
the BO of every tom, dick and harry, forced to sway back and forth like
you're pissed off your face because NO Sydney train I've been on has enough
places to hold onto for support, and then if you are lucky enough to get a
seat, you end up sitting on used chewing gum or freshly sprayed graffiti
paint, and then the final insult as the fugly guy/gal beside you falls
asleep and keeps on leaning on your shoulder, trying to deposit drool on
your good business suit.

Then there's the fact that one of the biggest growth area in Sydney (the
Hills District) isn't serviced by trains at all.

So when I worked in the city, I had to catch a bus to Parramatta (which took
ages anyway, because Windsor Rd simply can't handle the traffic flow any
more, say 35 minutes), then a train into the city that took up to an hour
(incuding several unexplained periods of no movement at all), then walk for
15 minutes through the exhaust fumes.  Total cost (just in fares, return)
around $12.00.  None of this time could be used for anything of any worth -
too crowded or noisy or smelly to ever concentrate on anything worthwhile.

Alternatively, I could drive to work, 1/2 an hour each way, total cost
(return), $5.00, plus whatever fuel/wear and tear on the car - and
considering most of the journey is done at 80km/h+, with few stops, the fuel
economy is good, and wear and tear isn't bad at all.  I was lucky enough to
have a parking spot, but my employer payed for that, not me.

The simple fact is that our public transport systems are underdeveloped, and
so don't suit enough people to make them a viable alternative to driving.
Until the government corrects this, there's little hope of reducing the
amount of traffic on the roads.

Loren Petrich wrote in message <7n5ktp$7j@dfw-ixnews11.ix.netcom.com>...
>In article <3796547B.844E51C@highway1.com.au>,
>Iskandar Baharuddin  <brengsek@highway1.com.au> wrote:
>
>>The "studies" of the advantages of public transport invariably
>>leave out one key factor: the value of the time of the
>>passenger.
>
> However, one may like to have one's time available for doing
>things other than driving, which can be the case in public-transit systems.
>
>--
>Loren Petrich Happiness is a fast Macintosh
>petrich@netcom.com And a fast train
>My home page: http://www.petrich.com/home.html