Want to end congestion? Put a price on our roads

if you really want to fix that problem you should give a very large or even massive tax cut or even cash bonus for everyone living withing 1 or

2 kilometers from their place of work. It takes a long time to change a city but you have to start somewhere.

---------------------

** His usual "off with the fairies" stuff

** Would merely increase the purchase price of properties and rents in that area by massive amounts to eat up the benefits.

..... Phil

If you want to end congestion, just boot the illegals out of the country. Problem solved.

Why not kick everybody out of the country? It solves the congestion problem. You won't have any economy left at all, but somebody silly enough to contemplate wrecking a large chunk of the economy by kicking illegal immigrants won't be worried by this.

Kicking out the right-wing lunatics might work better. If their work habits are as irrational as their policies, the economy might do better.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On a sunny day (Fri, 29 Nov 2019 14:51:51 -0800 (PST)) it happened snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in :

Flying cars are here We Dont Need No Freaking Freeway

How much of the US city congestion is due to office workers driving into their offices in the morning and back in the evening ?

Why not encourage working from the home offices at least a few days a week ? This would reduce commuting a lot.

What is the point of walking around a large grocery store ? Why not order on-line what you need (or even let your fridge do it in IoT style :-) an let the delivery service bring it to your home. Might need some outdoor fridge so that the delivery service doesn't have to enter your house.

I think that is already being done... a lot.

I can hit the grocery store while I am already out. There are plenty of things I don't order online, like groceries and clothes which many people do. I like to touch and see first hand things to wear. I don't like returning packages.

--

  Rick C. 

  -+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
  -+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

e by up to 50% ??? Hats off to Houston and their Katy Freeway!

free ride are over, make them pay.

/

The mentally challenged and thoroughly corrupt riffraff who have been runni ng the U.S. for the past 100 years were doing just the opposite, building u nnecessarily large roads to entice people to move away from the cities. It' s nothing for a large segment of the population to have a 100km commute, an d that's one-way.

Here's an example of what they were doing, the Massachusetts Turnpike, whic h runs east-west across a state with a topography of largely north-south ri vers and valleys. The environmental destruction was huge. But they "grew" p reviously sparsely populated areas and their economies like mad, for a whil e anyway. And they seemed to have missed the bit of accumulating ever more responsibility for expensive maintenance of this stuff.

em.

emplate wrecking a large chunk of the economy by kicking illegal immigrants won't be worried by this.

ts are as irrational as their policies, the economy might do better.

As you are so fond of noting, the US Economy is in debt, so by your logic, "wrecking a large chunk of the economy" might actually be a net benefit.

But let's delve into it just a little deeper so that you might better under stand the context of my proposed solution:

Here (South Florida), approximately 40% of all drivers at any given time do not have a valid driver license. (We're talking a total population of abo ut 6 million.) According to newspaper articles, the Top-5 reasons people d on't have licenses are: a) illegally in the country, b) license suspended o r revoked, c) in detox or similar programs, d) outstanding arrest warrants, and/or e) can't afford to carry insurance.

Of these, the ones that contribute most to "hit-&-run" accidents are: being here illegally (thus facing potential deportation if caught), and having o utstanding arrest warrants (thus facing jail time if caught).

And you'll just have to trust me on this: Hit-&-run accidents clog the roads like you wouldn't believe. You have both the normal accident tie-ups, plus the occasional police chase . And don't discount the rubber-necker onlooker delay.

While it's just my observation, I suppose I see maybe 1 or 2 "hit-&-run's" every month or so. Maybe 8-12 a year? Roughly. Of those, nearly all of t hem involve people of obviously Hispanic descent running from the scene, wi th maybe 1 or 2 being a car load of black, criminal-element-gang-looking ty pes. (It's never the sweet old lady from Pasadena.) And if the car won't roll, they literally just leave it where it sits, and hoof it out of there on foot. And now there's an abandoned car in the middle of the highway. L ovely.

Statistics from 2014 put the number of illegal immigrants in South Florida at about a half-million (not all of whom drive). Of course, government sta tistics are notoriously inaccurate, so the actual count is probably at leas t 3x or 4x that number.

Let's say it's only 10%. Take 10% of drivers permanently off the road and that's a HUGE improvement. (And admittedly, it would be even better if we could train the remaining 90 % to drive like normal people do.)

But regardless -- none of this is ever going to happen. I think we can agree on that.

The world needs fewer people - and that is not going to happen in my lifeti me. There are twice as many people on the planet now as when as I was born (act ually, a bit more than double). The planet is screwed, South Florida is screwed, and I'm (getting) old enou gh not to care.

And don't get me started about Public Transportation in South Florida... It is pitiful. Google Tri-Rail and Bright Line trains. Total waste of taxpayer money. And I would estimate that, at best - at th e peak time of usage - the city buses are probably a net-zero sum game. Th e congestion caused by the slow, lumbering buses that stop every few block, about equal the individual cars that might otherwise be on the road.

Of course, you could say I'm full of it, and biased, since I have to drive in this shit, .... and I guess I couldn't argue much with that.

Every national economy around the world is in debt. If the debt gets excessive, people won't trade with the nation involved, and their economy falls apart, which makes everybody involved much worse off.

There's absolutely no net benefit in that, so your response was an illustration of right-wing lunacy.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

My point exactly. Thank you.

Mpm thanks me for pointing out that he's an obvious right-wing lunatic?

Maybe there's a club he can join - it's not one where I'd want to spend any time.

--
Bill Sloman, sydney

On that note, one of the greatest things about America is that you will never be one of its citizens. Seriously. (And I for one am quite grateful for that.)

Now, if we can only get rid of the left-wing lunatics - particularly those currently in the Congress.

any time.

ever be one of its citizens. Seriously. (And I for one am quite grateful for that.)

It's not as if I'd want to become a citizen of the US these days. It may no t yet be a third world country, but it's working hard to get there.

e currently in the Congress.

American politics runs from lunatic right to middle of the road. Even the p oliticians that Americans consider dangerously left-wing, like Bernie Sande rs and Elizabeth Warren, are only contemplating exploiting the policies tha t have been tried and road-tested in Northern Europe for the past fifty-odd years.

They'd need to get the US voting system moved to proportional representatio n to get the kind of multi-party coalition governments that can make them w ork well.

The "left wing lunacy" involved exists only in the minds of American right- wingers, who think anybody who contemplates any kind of change in their dir e system has to have a screw lose.

The reality is that only a lunatic could want to hang onto a system that cu rrently delivers declining life expectancies while running a health system that costs half again more per head as the most extravagant of its rivals.

That particular absurdity is even more breath-taking than the antics of Don ald Trump, but America's right wing lunatics don't gag at either.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

So, let me get this right... You're suggesting that 'Liz and Bernie DON'T have a screw loose?

I'm inclined to agree with you, if only because "a" screw is far too limiting. An entire aisle at the local hardware store would be more accurate.

Its no suggestion. Both are perfectly sane. You don't seem to be.

Elizabeth Warren's work on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was impressive. You probably don't like it, but that's your problem.

It may represent your point of view accurately, but your point of view isn't remotely sane.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

It may surprise you to know that I actually seriously considered the possibility of voting for Warren in the 2016 election had she run and won her party's nomination.

With the exception of firearms legislation, curtailing illegal immigration, easing student-debt, implementing meaningful financial reform and maybe gay rights, I'm not nearly as "right-wing" as you perceive me to be.

But on the 2nd Amemdment (gun rights) and illegal immigration, I'm probably so far right of center that I wrap completely around to the beginning and end up being just a little left of the sovereign citizen movement. :)

And as sharp as my views on illegal immigration are, I'm still a firm believer in birth right citizenship. Go figure...

given that rush hours are mainly at start & end of work times & school ending times, it looks like that's the no.1 contributor.

'encouraging' it achieves next to nothing. Jobs that can work that way already do, but for most jobs it's not very practical.

Also ordering online only replaces a car journey with a van/truck journey. Realistically going out to buy works a lot better for a lot of shopping.

NT

Yeah, and make all posts SED cost something, too, while you're at it! It will get rid of fools like bloggs!