On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 19:26:39 +0000 (UTC),
(Eric Chomko) wrote:

AlienGreenspawn ) wrote:
: On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 18:23:39 -0400, The_Bob
: wrote:

: B1ackwater wrote:
:
: OK - the question is "WHY ?". A few people for a few days at
: a time ... it's just not worth doing (except to enrich certain
: aerospace companies).
:
: The answer is chrome plating it, of course, that way when we finish
: paving the earth the shine off of it at night will allow us to eliminate
: street light posts, which cause accidents.

: Ah ... but they're invaluable as a physical support
: mechanism for drunks !

Are you kidding? Here in the US drunks allow themselves to be propped up
by their cars while they fumble around for their keys.

They weren't so much of a problem before the traffic
density got so high.

MADD and all their wisdom don't have enough clout to take on the
oil/auto industries with their political backers in a manner to change the
public transportation systems of the US one iota.

I'm sorry to say that the US public transportation system is Second World,
but that is by design.

The urban geography of most US cities an suburbs is oriented
around using SPACE. This means that it's generally a long way
from wherever you are to wherever you need to go. Most old
european cities, built-up pre-automobile, are much more compact.
Not here. Since we are not going to tear down all our cities
are start over, we're kind-of STUCK with the status-quo.

This makes the private automobile a necessity. Public transport
generally won't get you close enough to where you need to go -
at least not without changing busses five or ten times. You
need to go twenty miles to work, five miles to the market, three
miles to other stores, five miles to school, to take kid #1 to
baseball practice ten miles south, kid #2 to soccer practice
five miles west and the dog to the vet six miles north. Then
you have to collect everyone again in a few hours. Sleep, and
repeat the next day. Public transport ? Forget it !