new type of "hybrid" car system?

The wells are already there, capped!

If we opened those wells the price of oil would drop like a rock and the A-Rabs would become all kissy-kissy... nobody to support their habit ;-)

...Jim Thompson

invested.

I would dispute your suggestion that there are literally *thousands* of cities where mass transit doesn't work for every place like London etc. It just isn't so.

As far as I can see only the USA has such a large land mass as to make such a suggestion even remotely plausible.

Do note that I'm making the case for both mass transit *and* personal transportation according to the prevailing situation. Ignoring one to the detriment of the other is plain stupid ( bur popular with single issue politicians ).

Graham

up

Why so ?

Go for it then !

Graham

A better idea, is to install a vacuum pump on the front bumper, which sucks in air in a vertical stream. Then, per Bernoulli's principle, that will lower the air pressure, creating a suction to pull you forward.

Mark

Blasphemy!!

invested.

I wouldn't like to do that either.

Commuter trains here travel at up to ~ 90 mph. On one memorable ocasion my journey from London St Pancras Station to St Albans - exactly 32km or 20 mi took a mere

Typically such jouneys as I made into London used both rail and 'the tube' and got me from from home to work or college in under an hour. Bear in mind also that parking was not readily available at the London end.

London ( and many other European cities ) grew up with a transportation system based on horse drawn carts. As such it will never be ideal for personal motor transport.

Graham

Define 'effective'. Transit systems like to use the volume of riders per hour. Unfortunately, if the pipeline is wide enough, high flow rates can be achieved with very low velocities. Not everyone can afford to spend a couple of hours a day on a bus.

Cities need to grow up with their transportation systems for generations for them to be effective. That gives time for the residents and businesses to locate around transportation hubs.

Unfortunately, some newer systems being introduced into cities are tools of the central planning elite. If given no other choices, you will live, work and shop in communities that they have planned, not where you want to. The destiny of societies built around central planning is very familiar to many of us.

They don't burn. They're all wet.

ROTFLMAO!

...Jim Thompson

invested.

the

where

transportation

other is

Last I checked there were over 200 countries on the planet.

There are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of cities on the planet.

The number of beehive cities can be counted on your digits.

Yeah, there was bus service of sorts to Saksoni Korea in the 60's, but the chances of a successful rail service to a farming village of a few hundred people is somewhere between slim and none.

You hear wrong. It's almost 5 yuan a liter (2.40/US gallon) for premium. The taxes are even lower than in the US-- a fixed so many Y per ton that amounts to something like 5%-6% of retail and 17% VAT. A lot of the expressways (gao lu) are toll roads to make up some of the difference.

BTW. that's one indication that the yuan value is about right, despite the claims of some politicians. Ever notice that when imbalances are brought up, the politicians always say it's the *other* guy who has to change? ;-)

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

they

invested.

'let the

cities where

transportation

other is

I wonder what your definition of a 'city' is.

Here in the UK it's generally not considered a city unless the population is typically ~

It can ? Do please illustrate.

Where did I suggest that it was sensible to operate a rail service to such small communities ? In fact my suggestion was explicitly that mass transit only makes sense in densely populated areas.

Graham

Subways seem to work very well in cities that have the population density and total population to support them. Bus systems less so. And limited commuter rail systems can be very efficient for servicing substantial bedroom communities.

For long distance travel, airplanes (another 'mass transit system') are pretty much unbeatably efficient as well as being fast (other than the stuff on the ground).

Since most of the rich people in the world (those who use a lot of energy) live in or very near to major cities, and more millions pour in every year, the use of mass transit systems is making a big difference (also reduces the number new expressways that have to be built on expensive land).

But most people are going to want a car or two per houshold regardless. Whether they all can offord to use them is another matter..

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

where

Certainly not thousands.

Tens of thousands possibly, but hundreds of thousands more likely.

and you can blow the sucked air out the back through a wind turbine.

where

transportation

other is

Every attempt at bus service to date in the greater Bonita-Eden-Sanchez metropolitan area has been a monumental failure.

cities where

Tens or hundreds of thousands for every city with similar infrastructure to 'London' and the like ? You have to be kidding or using a very curious definition of 'city'. If you meant mere *towns* that would be another matter.

Graham

minimum.

So what. The land the roads are built on is generally worth quite a bit more than the road structure itself, and the railway users have to pay interest on that capital investment as well.

And while I think about it, do you have separate state and federal fuel taxes to pay for the separate state road systems and the federally supported innter-state highways?

In fact, you've got it exactly the wrong way around.

Mass transit may be costly, but it is the only way you can get enough people in an out of a modern city centre to maintain the city as a useful economic entity. Los Angeles is the counter example - with two thirds of the city centre devoted to roads and parking, traffic access was still hopeless.

In this - crucial - area, motorised personal vehicle transport is the expensive scam. Bicycles require much less parking space, and can play a very useful role, as they do in the Netherlands. When I worked in Venlo and was commuting from Nijmegen, I had two bikes, one of which spent the day in the lock-up bike parking under the Nijmegen station, while the other spent the night in the Venlo station lock-up bike park.

Until someone works out how to park a car in a bicucle sized space, motorised vehicle transport is never going to be a practical option for inner city commuters.