Re: Cars make more economic sense than transit: fact

[Iskandar Baharuddin <brengsek@highway1.com.au>]

Matt Cremer wrote:
> 
> Iskandar Baharuddin wrote in message <379D8950.37C3DD99@highway1.com.au>...
> >Forg wrote:
> ...
> >> I haven't
> >> seen any figures for daily use, but for the peak hour there are 5 or so
> >> lines, with 1000 people per train every 3-5 minutes; let's say 15000 per
> >> line in that hour, or 75000 extra cars you would put on the road during
> >> that single hour. There is NO WAY that wouldn't turn the
> >> already-polluted city into a big smog-blanket, let alone the fact that
> >> doubling the width of the roads wouldn't help (which you couldn't do
> >> overnight one night, anyway).
> >
> >Not if the government allowed pay-to-use car pools. There are
> >quite a few people who would be prepared to invest in vans or
> >minibuses to ferry paying passengers in and out, 7 to 20 at a
> >time, at a price to be negotiated.
> ...
> 
> But isn't that public transport? Sounds a helluva lot like public
> transport to me; you know, where you go & get on a bus with a
> bunch of people you don't know, you pay a price for the
> journey ...

No, it is purely private transport.

The only way it is legal at present is for a fixed group of
people to charter a bus. Totally inflexible, and deliberately
so, to protect the established providers.

Should get the ACCC onto this.

> 
> ...
> >> Sure, you need both. But more cars, in their current form, basically
> >> means more dead people.
> >
> >Have you checked the stats lately? Fatalities have been coming
> >down steadily.
> ...
> 
> [Wheze, cough, splutter]
> Why, I hadn't actually seen an improvement in the colour of the Sydney
> sky-line.
> [Choke, gag, cough]
> But that could just be my [flutter, wheeze] imagination.
> 
If you are complaining about petrol and diesel-driven vehicles
you have a point. How about lobbying for electric cars, or bring
back the Stanley Steamer.


> ...
> >> Of course public transport doesn't pay for itself, it isn't supposed to.
> >> Are you saying that you pay, directly, for the roads you use? Sheesh!!
> >
> >Of course we do. Where do you live? Car drivers pay considerably
> >more that the cost of building and maintaining roads and
> >bridges.
> ...
> 
> Uh-huh. But what about the amount of damage that someone using
> public transport _doesn't_ do to a roadway? The amount of roadage
> that _isn't_ required to be built, because someone is using public
> transport. It's a bit like a free service I'm doing you ...
> 
> -Forg (Elsewhere)

You have lost me completely.

If the car drivers are paying for all of the roads, and they
are, the roadage not required is already factored in. In any
event buses do far more damage to roads than private cars. It's
all about axle loading.


-- 
Regards,

Izzy

"Stop the world - I want to get off!"