OT: Public transport

The only hitchhikers I've found who said they always get lifts quickly were two f****ng gorgeous nineteen year olds. I went out of my way to take them where they were going, and got in late for work. My boss understood the excuse.

The trouble with media is they only report the times it happened, not the millions it didn't. Best to ignore all the shit you read in newspapers. It's high time they all closed down. I see they're struggling to get subscriptions.

A calculation was made for trains in the UK, they also use more fuel per passenger than cars. I think they're good for very heavy goods, but not people.

Trains too, that is interesting. I once took a train from York to London and recall not many people on it.

You must ask permission before taking it. Best let the driver control it.

Despite the UK subsidising rail, I find it cheaper to drive my (old inefficient) car than buy a ticket.

Nothing is more convenient than a car. City folk are morons. Why live there?

It does not. If everyone has freedom of choice, they will choose the cheapest (most efficient).

No, you make others better off, not yourself.

Because you're feeding those who aren't contributing.

You objected to me having a go at Jews. Jews are the biggest religious nuts out there. They start as much war as Muslims. They think turning on a lightswitch on the sabbath is "work".

On May 5, 2023 at 5:35:30 AM MST, ""Commander Kinsey"" wrote snipped-for-privacy@ryzen.home:

You challenge of understanding why others make different choices often amuses me.

No matter the reason, people clearly ARE making that choice.

But you do not back making the cheaper choice even available.

Let's include the cost of harm in the cost of gas... and vehicles. That might do it.

When everyone is better off, or at least darn near everyone, how do you figure you are not included?

Buses and other public transportation is not feeding anyone. They do not have snack bars!

But with feeding... sure, those that are disabled or out of luck should not starve -- and when they do society as a whole suffers. Crime rates go up, for example.

I objected to bigotry.

I am Jewish -- and atheist -- and do no such thing. Your claim is simply wrong.

The problems the US caused in the first place?

That was the gift that keeps on giving. It only took the CIA 60 years to 'fess up. I wonder if they had anything to do with Euromaidan but I'm not going to live that long.

Ultimately after refinements to make people responsible. The original white bike scheme didn't work in Amsterdam and it didn't work here.

It goes back far, far further. Think Safavid empire. Think British Empire (anglo-persian war). Then there was the Balfour declaration which has lead to suffering and violence in the middle east.

Agreed. I was looking at the time frame where the US decided it was the big dog after WWII. The ouster of Mossadegh chiefly benefited the Anglo- Iranian Oil Company. Apparently the Brits weren't up to playing the 'Great Game' anymore so the CIA showed them how it was done.

Personally I'd rather deal with Persians than Arabs but so it goes.

As far as the Balfour declaration, that was Perfidious Albion at its best. iirc they sold the same cow to the Arabs, Jews, and French. I will go no further into that minefield.

The US has also demonstrated the proper way to handle Vietnam to the French and Afghanistan to the British, Russians, and the whole list of empire builders that went home worse for wear.

At least Vietnam sorted itself out, which it would have done anyway if left alone.

Wrong document: you need to look at Genesis, where we were kicked out of the garden and told it would take some work to keep up with our needs.

Woes of the world don't stay contained, like 'in Sudan'. COVID being one recent example.

Walking around with a helmet is easier than walking around with a scooter.

Are there cities where scooters are popular enough to make parking them a reasonable thing? In the US, most places would not allow you to just chain them to a lamp post like many do with bicycles.

Keep up that sort of talk and you will be kill filed by Larkin, the worst imaginable punishment known to man. I only wish kill filing worked both ways. He doesn't see my posts, and I can't see his. But, alas, it only supports the trivial direction, him not seeing my posts.

It's a nice theory, but cars are much, much more convenient for the majority. The cost advantage of riding a bus is small enough that very few people don't have cars because of it. At least, not in first world countries.

The "environment"??? How is it good for the environment to be running a bus with three people on it?

I used to commute to work on the bus when I worked in Washington, DC. In the suburbs the busses ran 1 per hour. They were not empty, or nearly so. Routes with empty buses would have fewer runs or be dropped altogether. It costs a *lot* of money to run a bus and they emit a lot of pollution, in several respects. They are big, noisy and clog the roads, preventing the more nimble vehicles from getting where they need to go. I recall not being able to use the right hand lane, because you had to stop everywhere they bus did. Trying to get into another lane was difficult from the traffic. So they were a PITA, and largely wasted a driving lane on many routes. At least those routes were actually moving people.

I think it was Churchill who said, "democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried." Cars are like that too. As we convert to electric, at least the pollution aspect will be greatly improved.

Perhaps you can explain what you meant by, 'though that "loss" really is still a gain for society'? What are the gains, other than the tangible things like pollution and cost? When people mention "society" in conversations like this, it usually means they don't actually have anything to say.

I grew up with electric trolley buses. They don't squirt submicron carbon fragments into the urban atmosphere and people's lungs, as diesel buses do.

In America the word "society" comes with an implicit link to "socialism" and the rich people who own and control newspapers - Rupert Murdoch comes mind - have work hard to convince the American public that "socialism" equals "communisn" which isn't actually true.

The social advantage of public transport in big cities is that you can't devote enough of the inner city area to roads and parking to make private cars are viable mode of commuting. If you want people to commute into to centre of city to work, you have to provide public transport, ideally underground.

Another example is the public phone. Phone booths all over the place were referred to as public phones, and the few that are left still are, even the government didn't own any of them. They were owned by one or another phone company but meant to be used by the public.

Public parks are almost always owned by the government, but that does not mean public phones and public transsportation has to be because ownership is now what makes them public. In fact if there is some forest or park-like land that is owned by the government but people are not allowed in for some reason, it's not a public park, even if the government owns it. There is such a place near me, Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area, owned by the state of Maryland, but part of it (the most interesting part) is closed to visitors bedause they are afraid we'll step on some endangered plant. That part is not public.

Even though the government....

NOT what makes them public. Darn.