Kentucky Atheist Hero gets "IM GOD" license plate

[tomdalton22]

But you should also have public transit available, like in a normal civilized country, so people don't have to buy cars and drive if they don't want to.

There are very few places like that in most of America. Fuck, only like 4 or 5 cities have functional public transit (NYC, Chicago, DC, and maybe the Bay Area and Boston). Every where else you live in the country, you have to buy a car, and on top of that pay $1,000's to license it, maintain it and buy gas.

All to subsidize Exxon, Chevron, BP, GM, Ford, etc.

I live in a suburb of a city of 275K (entire metro area is about 600K). We have a cheap public transit system that serves the city and suburbs. I think that mostly poor people use it though. It's just too easy & convenient to drive your own car.

 

[Michchamp]

I bla bla bla hurrr durrr drrr e. ...

It would be a massive waste of taxpayer money.

...

Right... so instead spend many billions of taxpayer dollars building roads that need to be resurfaced and maintained constantly, and make everyone buy a car and sit in traffic jams to get around.

 

[Spartanmack]

I have yet to go to a major city that doesn't have bus service - even most 2nd tier cities have it. They have it in Ft. Lauderdale for crap's sake.

there's a reason cities like Detroit don't have commuter trains - nobody wants or needs them. I grew up less than 15 miles from downtown Detroit where practically half the town worked for one of the big three and I don't know a single person whose dad or mom commuted to Detroit every day. That may have changed since GM bought the Ren Cen, but probably not enough to justify wasting billions on a commuter trainlines to all the destinations that commuters might come from - Grosse Isle, Livonia, Farmington, Birmingham/Bloomfield, Sterling Heights, Grosse Pointe not to mention Windsor - are we gonna let those guys clog up our roads with their square tire cars? No way, build them a train, get Mexico to pay for it. It would be a massive waste of taxpayer money. By the way, the public transportation system in Detroit is or at least was a huge financial burden on the City - with entire neighborhoods nearly abandoned, the city still had to provide and pay for services nobody was using. Thanks to bureaucratic mismanagement, Detroit was a paying drivers to drive empty buses along some routes - that's government efficiency for you (probably those evil Republicans that run Detroit handing out those cushy bus driver jobs to their political donors).

Where I live now, we have commuter trains and they absolutely suck. The NJ Transit is bankrupt and structurally falling apart. Every fare increase goes to cover obscene pension costs while the rail infrastructure is crumbling. Commuters hate it - it's riddled with delays and service disruptions - it's by far the most unreliable form of transportation into the city and it's not exactly cheap either - over $300 for a monthly pass from our zone. Thanks to the union, we still have several conductors on every train - they could cut that to zero by installing secure turnstiles. I discovered a private bus company that was cheaper and WAY more reliable for the last 2 years I commuted and never rode NJT for work again.

 

[tomdalton22]

Right... so instead spend many billions of taxpayer dollars building roads that need to be resurfaced and maintained constantly, and make everyone buy a car and sit in traffic jams to get around.

the problem is very few people would use public transit in most cities. It's faster & more convenient to drive your own car.

 

[Spartanmack]

Right... so instead spend many billions of taxpayer dollars building roads that need to be resurfaced and maintained constantly, and make everyone buy a car and sit in traffic jams to get around.

of course you didn't read the part where I talked about the cost of the crumbling mass transit rail infrastructure, otherwise you wouldn't have made this stupid post...

But to answer your question, yes do that instead. and like I've been saying for years and Tom said here already today, make the people who use it pay for it. Make the interstate highways toll roads where the funds pay for maintenance, traffic enforcement, etc, etc. Increase the gas tax and put the proceeds into the transportation fund. If you start tying the cost to the activity, you start getting the behavior you want - it's literally that simple but your pea brain can't get past your fixation on bullshit like income inequality, the evils of the profit motive, institutional and systemic racism, ACCC and other fictions you've bought into.

 

[Spartanmack]

the problem is very few people would use public transit in most cities. It's faster & more convenient to drive your own car.

facts don't matter, he has the best of intentions and you can't put a price tag on that. plus, when it fails there will be all the private sector companies contracted to build the system that can be blamed because they made profits. That will provide the justification for nationalizing the whole system which is likely the real goal here.

 

[Michchamp]

of course you didn't read the part where I talked about the cost of the crumbling mass transit rail infrastructure, otherwise you wouldn't have made this stupid post...

But to answer your question, yes do that instead. and like I've been saying for years and Tom said here already, make the people who use it pay for it. Make the highways toll roads where the funds pay for maintenance, traffic enforcement, etc, etc. Increase the gas tax and put the proceeds into the transportation fund. If you start tying the cost to the activity, you start getting the behavior you want - it's literally that simple but your pea brain can't get past your fixation on bullshit like income inequality, the evils of the profit motive, institutional and systemic racism, ACCC and other fictions you've bought into.

the issues of not maintaining rail infrastructure or planning bus routes correctly is due to a political issue in the NYC area... in Chicago both rail and bus transit, public and private, work great. I took them all for 10 years, and still ride them when I go back and they were how it should be everywhere.

 

[Michchamp]

the problem is very few people would use public transit in most cities. It's faster & more convenient to drive your own car.

It is? I sit in traffic for close to a fucking hour total most days, and that's considered normal here in Houston.

 

[Spartanmack]

the problem is very few people would use public transit in most cities. It's faster & more convenient to drive your own car.

faster and more convenient to drive and for most people that don't live in NYC or Chicago, commuter trains are totally useless 98% of the time. As a kid in suburban Detroit, my dad commuted from one suburb to another, not going anywhere near Detroit. We maybe went to one or two festivals downtown every year and occasionally (like once every 3 years) went to a Tigers game. And that was the case for virtually every family I knew and we were one of the closest suburbs to Detroit. A commuter train system for Detroit would literally be the dumbest idea anyone ever tried to push.

 

[tomdalton22]

It is? I sit in traffic for close to a fucking hour total most days, and that's considered normal here in Houston.

From what I remember, you live in Houston.

https://www.ridemetro.org/Pages/index.aspx#

I see they have rail lines and extensive bus service. You should use them. I'm sure it will be faster

 

[Spartanmack]

the issues of not maintaining rail infrastructure or planning bus routes correctly is due to a political issue in the NYC area... in Chicago both rail and bus transit, public and private, work great. I took them all for 10 years, and still ride them when I go back and they were how it should be everywhere.

Buses in Detroit, the buses in NY are actually pretty good. try to keep up. And how could that be the case - both NJ and NY are run entirely by democrats?

In Chicago and NYC you have a massive population of urban professionals that both live and work in the city. The subway and the L make perfect sense in those cities. I rode the L all the time when I lived in Chicago and the subway when I lived in NYC and I ride both when I go back too, but I'm not foolish enough to think it's needed or would work in Detroit. There’s a reason they haven’t expanded the People Mover.

Chicago and NYC are both many times bigger than Detroit as are their respective metro areas and the commuter system is justified by that commuting population. The population of Manhattan more than doubles on weekdays from 1.6mm to almost 4mm people - you realize Detroit has less than 1mm people in it, right? The NYC subway systemwide has 5.5mm daily weekday riders, >3mm Saturday riders. That's more than 5x the entire population of Detroit and still more than 3x just on Saturdays. A Detroit commuter train line would be even dumber - an estimated 158k people commute to Detroit daily from all over the metro area. You want to build a massive commuter rail system in Detroit and hope that brings people back to the city because even capturing 100% of the current daily commuters isn't enough. Good luck with that.

If you give them great coffee and great music, they will park and ride. You are the beta boy from Singles...

https://youtu.be/YDjy9uJUawU

 

[Spartanmack]

It is? I sit in traffic for close to a fucking hour total most days, and that's considered normal here in Houston.

I live in what is considered a great commuting town and it’s an hour door to door from my house to my old job in midtown. Add the frequent train snafus and it easily become 90+ mins or worse each way.

come to Penn Station and STAND shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other commuters waiting for over an hour for an NJT train, then get carried along with the herd as you board an overcrowded train where you again stand shoulder to shoulder until the train eventually clears out enough for you to maybe get a seat before you reach your stop - then see how quickly you miss your car.

 

[tomdalton22]

I think more and more people work from home now and I would expect that to increase over time. My wife and I both work from home. My office is close by, she is based out of Chicago witch is over 250 miles away.

 

[Spartanmack]

I think more and more people work from home now and I would expect that to increase over time. My wife and I both work from home. My office is close by, she is based out of Chicago witch is over 250 miles away.

sounds like your wife needs a train with great coffee and great music.