Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<I know this state and especially this city. At the very beginning the ridership will be high because of the curiosity factor but eventually it'll tail off and you could be looking at 1/2 to 3/4 empty trains. That wouldn't exactly be feasible.>> So you are projecting zero growth for Milwaukee? It won't ever need alternative transportation other than buses?
Originally Posted By DAR No there will be growth but people will go back to either riding the bus or driving their cars. I gave the example of the trolley car system the city introduced. Nobody rides that thing.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones Milwaukee's trolley service is just a circulator bus in the downtown area. It's not rail. It looks to me like it's set up for tourists. You'll see similar services offered in downtown areas but they often don't have high ridership and use shorter buses. Other lines likely to the heavy lifting.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<No there will be growth but people will go back to either riding the bus or driving their cars. I gave the example of the trolley car system the city introduced. Nobody rides that thing.>> Lemme ask, would WDW be better off if they invested some money now in additional monorail lines or light rail, or should they just continue along with buses, potentially adding more lanes or roads and more buses? Personally speaking, I think the former would not only be more desirable, but more efficient and perhaps even more cost effective.
Originally Posted By plpeters70 <<Lemme ask, would WDW be better off if they invested some money now in additional monorail lines or light rail, or should they just continue along with buses, potentially adding more lanes or roads and more buses?>> WDW is a perfect example of what has gone wrong in this country. It started with a master plan that included a well designed mass transit system. When they build EPCOT, they expanded the system, but then, like in so many new Disney rides, something went horribly wrong. Disney stopped planning for mass transit, and allowed resorts and theme parks to be built willie-nillie all around the property with only car and bus access. Now, they are all so spread out that it will cost Disney a fortune to connect them all with mass tranist. This is exactly what happened in our country. Municipalities built all over the place, and only connected these developments with roads, and no plan for mass transist happened, and now it will cost a fortune to connect it all. Frankly, I think cities should start making some hard decisions. Connect what makes sense, and hope that eventually people will abondon living in areas that aren't connected to a mass transit corridor. Stop wasting money building more roads, and start building realistic mass transit systems.
Originally Posted By DAR How about we get car companies to build more affordable energy efficient cars and get those on the road.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Still does not solve the manufacturing impact on the environment, the space they take, what we do with the vehicles when they get old etc. The slefish consumerism in the US (and everywhere else including England) is really raping the Earth.
Originally Posted By Mr X How about we charge $9 per gallon gas tax nationally, and use it to subsidize a national transportation system?
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo WEll given we pay 60% tax on fuel in the UK, let's do it. Gas is too cheap in the US, as is parking, so they are disinsentives for using public transport.
Originally Posted By dshyates I ride the city bus to work 3 times a week here in Orlando. It is cheaper and saves wear and tear on my car. Plus it gives me a chance to read the morning news on my iPhone.
Originally Posted By DAR Bus takes too long. My car takes me 10 minutes-15 minutes and I'm at my desk. It would take me 10 minutes to get to the park n ride. If I missed the bus another 10 minutes waiting. It's not worth it.
Originally Posted By DAR But I don't live anywhere else so I can only base it on my experiences. If you want to ride the bus or the train be my guest.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<But I don't live anywhere else so I can only base it on my experiences.>> Using that logic, why do you need to pay taxes for the TSA or the military? After all, no terrorist has ever attacked Milwaukee. <<If you want to ride the bus or the train be my guest.>> It's not about me, either. I hardly ever use the bus or train, for the same reason you don't use them. But I'm glad to pay taxes so that those options exist, because sometimes they *are* better than having to use the car.
Originally Posted By plpeters70 <<How about we get car companies to build more affordable energy efficient cars and get those on the road.>> But cars are exactly the problem - they allow our society to just keep spreading out, and spreading out -- and it's just not sustainable. I see it all the time here in Maryland, and in my home state of Florida. More and more land is cleared and more houses and strip malls go up. We shouldn't be doing this - we should be building vertically and minimizing our impact on the land. But no - everybody has to have the "American dream" of a house, yard and car - and we're fast running out of space.
Originally Posted By DAR <<We shouldn't be doing this - we should be building vertically and minimizing our impact on the land. But no - everybody has to have the "American dream" of a house, yard and car - and we're fast running out of space.>> And for some people living in a high rise condo walking out of into a giant hallway and then waiting for a train is the American dream. Me I'd rather walk right outside to my driveway, open my garage and take my car for spin. I'd rather cut my grass, shovel my sidewalk and driveway.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<I ride the city bus to work 3 times a week here in Orlando. It is cheaper and saves wear and tear on my car. Plus it gives me a chance to read the morning news on my iPhone.>> vs <<Bus takes too long. My car takes me 10 minutes-15 minutes and I'm at my desk. It would take me 10 minutes to get to the park n ride. If I missed the bus another 10 minutes waiting. It's not worth it.>> Back in the nineties, I used to commute from SF to Santa Clara by train. It took an additional 30 min to do that, but the time on the train was golden. I was able to read the paper or textbooks, work on homework for grad school, or just relax. I was far less stressed by the end of the week, using that one hour train trip for more productive endeavors than sitting in freeway traffic behind the wheel. DAR makes it sound like losing an additional 30 min during his commute is a tragedy. Why not use that time to read the paper or a book? Maybe download podcasts into an MP3 player, like news highlights or radio programs or academic lectures? There are so many things you can do in those additional 30 minutes -- even floss your teeth -- that you can't do behind the wheel or sitting at your desk. And as dshyates pointed out, the savings in gas and wear and tear on your car is significant. Of course it's better for the environment, but it's also better for your bank account. If using public transportation added an additional 60 to 90 min each way to your commute, then perhaps it wouldn't be worth it. But 30 min? That's nothing to whine about. I do wonder about one thing, however. Is this more about your image, than it is about being inconvenienced? I knew someone in SF, long ago, who would actually spend far more time and money driving to his office (monthly parking rates here are insane) than taking BART and MUNI, because he was a middle manager, trying to impress his bosses. He believed that taking public transportation would give them the wrong impression about how he viewed himself in the corporate hierarchy, since none of the execs above him took public transportation.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "Plus it gives me a chance to read the morning news on my iPhone." In San Francisco they put cell phone service in the underground portions of the route. They are working on doing the same on the Los Angeles subway. Here's how you get people on transit. 1. You are addicted to the Internet. 2. You can look at all the stupid web sites you look at on your smartphone while riding transit. That extra thirty minutes can be spent watching kittens on YouTube. There, the world has changed for the better.
Originally Posted By DAR But it takes me 10-15 minutes to get to work as it is. And it takes me about 15-20 on the way home I currently like that and would like to keep it that way.
