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Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

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Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#41

Post by VaedaStrike »

darrenkopp wrote: post #17
thoughtcriminal wrote: post #12

I'm amazed by people's ability to rationalize why it's okay to continue commuting long distances and driving cars in general, despite the toxic smog that gets deadlier every year. Instead of making those hard changes like using public transit or living locally, I guess everyone is waiting for Elon Musk to save the world with his magic-mobiles. Go ahead, downvote me for telling the truth. I got karma to spare.

Have you seen the public transportation in Utah? We got a commuter rail train in 2002 for the olympics, which was pretty much limited to a small area in downtown Salt Lake, and then a straight line down through sandy. Then a few years ago we got Front Runner, which is a somewhat fast commuter train between Ogden and salt lake, but which costs somewhere around $250/month last time I checked. Buses are OK, about as goo…

I'm just curious if you're aware how much money beyond that 250 a month is subsidized by federal money? You seem to imply that the cost is outrageous to expect people to pay, and I'd agree, yet the irony is that few things are as insanely subsidized as FrontRunner and TRAX (Utah's light rail system). TRAX has a per rider subsidy, if you factor in construction cost and maintenance, of 6-7 dollars. So if the people were actually paying full price for just ridding the light rail they'd be dishing out about 22 dollars for a two way trip. If they were smart they'd never have built light rail, but rather have taken that same money and quadrupled the whole bus system in Utah to actually give us a transit system that was actually responsive to the transit needs of our population. They would have moved more people, displaced more cars, and not have an absurdly 'tightly coupled' infrastructure where a single technological failure shuts down entire valley transit lines. But people see electrical trains, feel and see a smooth ride that can accelerate really fast and, to the best of their discernment isn't 'dirty'. And since they're protected from the real cost of the system they have illusions about it's capacity to cure traffic woes and save the planet. Never mind that when Utah was growing full tilt the number of new cars on it's roads replaced what TRAX's entire network managed to replace after hundreds of millions of dollars of investment.

Here's another interesting fact. When I looked into Front Runner's costs (which relative to other faster trains is relatively inexpensive) and did the math to spread it over the population for whom it was moving their commute off the road and found that the costs equated to over 50,000 dollars per rider. That's to say that we could have bought everyone a nice hybrid and we would have done likely a better job for the environment, for less money, and not have had to extend a rather limited and fragile infrastructure.

Trains make no sense, not even in Japan nor Europe. Look at the actual numbers, whether it's the fiscal costs or the total environmental costs of the system and it's support systems compared to their equivalents in a trainless world.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#42

Post by ars »

saosebastiao wrote: post #37
ars wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buses make about 150 to 250 times as much soot. Not twice as much. Old buses granted. Newer ones are much better.

Have you been reading research papers from the 1950's? If you get on any bus anywhere in the US, you are virtually guaranteed that the bus is less than 10 years old. The average replacement time for Municipal buses is 7 years...10 years with complete engine replacement.

I was driving behind a bus in the US just last week - every time the bus accelerated a huge cloud of black smoke poured out of it.

Yes, new buses are good. But there are still plenty of old ones. (And this one didn't look old.)

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#43

Post by fowkswe »

SLC, and every other major American city for that matter, is never going to solve their smog problems when they are built such that inhabitants REQUIRE the use of a vehicle to perform the necessary tasks to exist.

Elon Musk might have a solution (thought I'm skeptical) but public transportation cannot to fix the environmental effects of urban sprawl.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#44

Post by VaedaStrike »

bencpeters wrote: post #35

A BIG part of SLC's air quality problem is that we have so much industrial pollution in the area. Kennicott operates one of the largest strip mines in the world in the valley, and their operation alone accounts for ~1/3 of the air pollution. There are also a lot of oil refineries in the north SL area that spew pollution constantly. I agree that public transportation and re-thinking commuting is a good step, but it wo…

Ben here made my point right after I pointed it out. He brings up Kennicott's Bingham Copper mine but seems ignorant that pound for pound of copper it's the cleanest copper produced on the planet.

He also seems to not address the reality that our geography would trap a lot of pollution regardless of where it was originally produced, simply by virtue of the valley's geography.

I'm not against cleaning things up as much as possible. But do you really think shutting down the cleanest copper operation on the planet is a net gain for the environmental movement? Are we really okay with bad air as long as we don't directly produce it? How many of us have smart phones and computers (we are discussing this on HN are we not?)? How guilty do we feel about the pollution produced in 3rd world countries where much of the Rare Earth Elements used in them are mined?

Please people, reconsider the degree of outrage simply because you can see the dirty air. Illusory and placebo environmentalism is not the means to a better world. We need to see things in a planetary perspective if we want to really address planetary problems, and being enraged about SLC's air quality in the middle of an inversion is like getting worked up about polluted water after watching Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Sure the water is atrocious and it's a crying shame, but the water is likely no less polluted in any other metropolitan area hit by a hurricane, it's just the Geography is less advantageous to New Orleans.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#45

Post by saosebastiao »

ars wrote: post #42
saosebastiao wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been reading research papers from the 1950's? If you get on any bus anywhere in the US, you are virtually guaranteed that the bus is less than 10 years old. The average replacement time for Municipal buses is 7 years...10 years with complete engine replacement.

I was driving behind a bus in the US just last week - every time the bus accelerated a huge cloud of black smoke poured out of it. Yes, new buses are good. But there are still plenty of old ones. (And this one didn't look old.)

Ah yes, we should go ahead with a ban on public transportation due to a fucking anecdote. You and my former boss would get along quite well.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#46

Post by austenallred »

bencpeters wrote: post #35

A BIG part of SLC's air quality problem is that we have so much industrial pollution in the area. Kennicott operates one of the largest strip mines in the world in the valley, and their operation alone accounts for ~1/3 of the air pollution. There are also a lot of oil refineries in the north SL area that spew pollution constantly. I agree that public transportation and re-thinking commuting is a good step, but it wo…

At least we don't have Geneva Steel anymore. Man that was a nightmare.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#47

Post by darrenkopp »

VaedaStrike wrote: post #41
darrenkopp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the public transportation in Utah? We got a commuter rail train in 2002 for the olympics, which was pretty much limited to a small area in downtown Salt Lake, and then a straight line down through sandy. Then a few years ago we got Front Runner, which is a somewhat fast commuter train between Ogden and salt lake, but which costs somewhere around $250/month last time I checked. Buses are OK, about as goo…

I'm just curious if you're aware how much money beyond that 250 a month is subsidized by federal money? You seem to imply that the cost is outrageous to expect people to pay, and I'd agree, yet the irony is that few things are as insanely subsidized as FrontRunner and TRAX (Utah's light rail system). TRAX has a per rider subsidy, if you factor in construction cost and maintenance, of 6-7 dollars. So if the people wer…

I'm saying that $190 is a decent amount of money for a lot of people along the wasatch front, especially when comparing it to just driving, ergo why it is likely that you see so many people driving instead of using public transportation which is the response to the root comment.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#48

Post by sievert »

michael_michael wrote: post #9
richeyrw wrote: post #5

I live in SLC. It is pretty bad, though to be fair you get really pretty sunsets...

And with a good strong wind you get the added bonus of smelling dead brine shrimp rotting in the great Salt Lake. I lived there for most of my life and will never forget that smell.

I know now where I will never live

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#49

Post by saosebastiao »

VaedaStrike wrote: post #41
darrenkopp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the public transportation in Utah? We got a commuter rail train in 2002 for the olympics, which was pretty much limited to a small area in downtown Salt Lake, and then a straight line down through sandy. Then a few years ago we got Front Runner, which is a somewhat fast commuter train between Ogden and salt lake, but which costs somewhere around $250/month last time I checked. Buses are OK, about as goo…

I'm just curious if you're aware how much money beyond that 250 a month is subsidized by federal money? You seem to imply that the cost is outrageous to expect people to pay, and I'd agree, yet the irony is that few things are as insanely subsidized as FrontRunner and TRAX (Utah's light rail system). TRAX has a per rider subsidy, if you factor in construction cost and maintenance, of 6-7 dollars. So if the people wer…

Not even in Japan or Europe? Have you really done the math, or are you extrapolating from a single data point? The costs of building rails and running a train are called fixed costs...cost per rider is inverse to the number of riders. That means that with higher ridership, cost per person decreases.

Don't believe me? The Calgary CTrain has costs not much different than TRAX. Operating costs, including depreciation, are $0.30 per rider...making the system profitable enough to subsidize the more suburban bus system. Why? Because they have 5x the ridership.

Don't be obtuse.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#50

Post by ars »

saosebastiao wrote: post #45
ars wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was driving behind a bus in the US just last week - every time the bus accelerated a huge cloud of black smoke poured out of it. Yes, new buses are good. But there are still plenty of old ones. (And this one didn't look old.)

Ah yes, we should go ahead with a ban on public transportation due to a fucking anecdote. You and my former boss would get along quite well.

I guess you are not as secure in your beliefs as you thought if you need to resort to swearing. You thought buses are modern and clean, and when you discover different you swear?

Diesel is very polluting compared to gasoline and I hate it. And stop/start diesel is the worst. So despite its great reputation public buses are not the automatic win they are made out to be.

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