131–140 of 146 posts
I briefly studied in South Dakota and Iowa without a car and it was a living nightmare. Relying on friends and "taxis", I had to go through negative temperatures to get a simple can of soda. After that, I could never complain about BART.
But on the plus side, cars are a lot easier to own in those areas. Parking is usually free/cheap. Traffic is very low, etc.
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You're right. But the cost is still lower than fixing potholes in asphalt due to wear & tear, freezing and thawing, and slippery ice is less of a problem too. Not surprisingly, most Iowa folks are good drivers in bad weather. Generally it's avoided altogether. When it has to be done, most people are smart enough to slow down and be careful, or pull over and wait it out. There will still be accidents, but less cars sl…
The cost to the government may be lower than fixing potholes in asphalt, but not necessarily to the people driving cars.
I... uh... were you disagreeing with the person above you?
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Yep, it's unclear how it's measured and if the metric applied correctly. For example, in Seattle traffic jams get only worse over years. Clearly it hasn't "peaked". Yet map from the article shows that it peaked in the Washington state as a whole.
Hilariously, the graph in the article is "Vehicle Miles Travelled" not "Hours spent in vehicle" which could be increasing while the other decreases.
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Ones where for a variety of reasons airspace is closed - WWII would not have been possible for us without railroads - the railroads moves huge numbers of men and materiel cross country faster than aircraft could - railroads also use much less fuel to do it than nearly any method of transport. While I cant think of a tactical situation where we couldn't airlift troops inside the continental US - the skills pool is wor…
WWII wasn't possible without the railroads because the interstate highways hadn't been built yet. They are now, and as a result our rail network has become useless for personnel and troop transport. Sure, we can press our amazing freight network into service for logistics, but there's no reason to prop up Amtrak to keep those skills and infrastructure around, since the freight carriers show no signs of being in dange…
It's kind of a joke. We should either get serious about a rail system or kill Amtrak altogether.
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The cost to the government may be lower than fixing potholes in asphalt, but not necessarily to the people driving cars.
So you're saying the total cost is lower, and borne only by the people incurring it, not every taxpayer? I... uh... were you disagreeing with the person above you?
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Transportation infrastructure spending at the federal level is currently 3%.[1] You could always argue that is low due to a lack of investment, but it pales in comparison to federal entitlement spending (59%). I'd be much more worried about the tax burden due to entitlement spending than I would about transportation infrastructure. [1] http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-fede...
The highway trust fund goes broke this month: http://www.transportation.gov/highway-trust-fund-ticker It would cost $3.6 trillion to bring infrastructure back up to par: http://www.wired.com/2015/01/time-fix-americas-infrastructur... > Unfortunately, highway fund revenues have been insufficient to fully fund existing highway spending, with Congress authorizing billions of dollars in transfers from the US Treasury’s G…
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WWII wasn't possible without the railroads because the interstate highways hadn't been built yet. They are now, and as a result our rail network has become useless for personnel and troop transport. Sure, we can press our amazing freight network into service for logistics, but there's no reason to prop up Amtrak to keep those skills and infrastructure around, since the freight carriers show no signs of being in dange…
On the west coast Amtrak is more of an amusement park ride than a practical transportation option. If you want to go from San Francisco to Los Angeles the Amtrak trip planner has you on two trains and two buses before you arrive after nine hours. If you want to take a train the whole way there's only one each day and it takes 12 hours (as compared to about 6.5 driving). It's kind of a joke. We should either get serio…
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The highway trust fund goes broke this month: http://www.transportation.gov/highway-trust-fund-ticker It would cost $3.6 trillion to bring infrastructure back up to par: http://www.wired.com/2015/01/time-fix-americas-infrastructur... > Unfortunately, highway fund revenues have been insufficient to fully fund existing highway spending, with Congress authorizing billions of dollars in transfers from the US Treasury’s G…
Gasoline prices in the US are very low compared to what you pay in Europe, maybe if the government increased the taxation of gasoline they could make up for that shortfall. In Germany they added ~17 billion to the budget that way per year since 1999. With the usage pattern in the US you could probably make significantly more.
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The problem with gravel roads is that after a heavy rain a lot of potholes appear and some of them can be pretty big, it's relatively ok during the day travel, but driving at night will most certainly cause a lot of car damage and accidents in a long run.
You're right. But the cost is still lower than fixing potholes in asphalt due to wear & tear, freezing and thawing, and slippery ice is less of a problem too. Not surprisingly, most Iowa folks are good drivers in bad weather. Generally it's avoided altogether. When it has to be done, most people are smart enough to slow down and be careful, or pull over and wait it out. There will still be accidents, but less cars sl…