Re: Cars make more economic sense than transit: fact

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

ant wrote:
> 
> Iskandar Baharuddin wrote in message <379D8950.37C3DD99@highway1.com.au>...
> >Forg wrote:
> >>
> >> Mark Gibson wrote:
> >> ...
> >> > Mass transit is generally a major scam perpetrated upon innocent
> taxpayers.
> >> > The fact that it rarely pays for itself and the fact that most people
> >> > rarely, if ever, use it strongly support my point.
> >> >
> >> > If all mass transit disappeared tomorrow, society might be
> inconvenienced
> >> > for a few weeks, but life would go on.  If private road-based motor
> vehicular
> >> > traffic disappeared tomorrow, society would be well on its way to
> oblivion
> >> > within a week.  Face facts.  We don't need mass transit to get by.
> Those
> >> > few places that do are overcrowded and would benefit more by reducing
> their
> >> > population density.
> >> ...
> >>
> >> Mate, you're living in a dream world. The entire financial structure of
> >> the world would collapse; all the major financial centres are in major
> >> cities that could not operate without public transport. Even Sydney is
> >> not big on a global scale, and single-day train strikes make the place
> >> grind to a halt; and that's just one form of public transport. 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.
> >
> >However, at present this would be an economic crime.
> >
> 
> yes it is called operating a public conveyance without proper licensing and
> insurance for public liability. change the law to allow that and you destroy
> the taxi, bus and hire car industrys and put public lives at risk due to
> improperly trained drivers operating what is basically a unregulated taxi
> service in cars that are not subject to the same regular safety inspections
> normal taxis are.
> 
> <snip stuff not relevant to this reply>
> 
> ant

Would the risk really be greater than having eight people
zooming around individually?

If you want to have a serious discussion, I would support
licensing - just not _restrictive_ licensing. Clear-cut
criteria, including insurance, training, vehicle and health
checks.

Anyone who applies and meets the criteria gets a license,
without regard to what rice bowls might get broken.

-- 
Regards,

Izzy

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