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195 comments on DrumBeat: August 12, 2008

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tstreet on August 12, 2008 - 10:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

They spent billions on I-25 while at the same time expanding light rail, a rather contradictory course of action. I think it is mainly oil that is contributing to these cost overruns. Sales taxes were raised with public support to build Fas Traks. Not sure the public would go for a further increase in sales taxes to pay for this.

Diverting money from road building/maintenance would be a great idea. But that would probably be unpopular as well. Despite the growing transit system, Denverites still love their cars.

I am a big fan of mass transit, including buses. We just had a family reunion in my little mountain town and my brother asked to borrow my car to drop off his daughter in Colorado Springs, 130 miles from where I live. I told him to suggest to her to take the bus which is way cheaper than making a round trip to the Springs. He will now barely talk to me. Anyway, she will be taking the bus unless my bro can convince my other brother to lend him his car.

Point of this little anecdote? All sorts of people talk the talk but when it comes to actually taking mass transit they default to the car every time.

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embryonic on August 12, 2008 - 10:59am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

That's true to an extent, even in the UK. But in any kind of optimisation process the key is that you want to go after the element which has the highest "cost of activity" times "frequency of activity". It matters much less whether people change their vacation plans, potentially involving huge mileage for maybe fifteen days, than if they change their daily commute, which is generally much shorter but happens close to 250 days a year.

On the anecdote front, I'm all for taking buses, but family will insist on holding get togethers at some point over holiday weekends which is precisely when most buses change to their "one or two in the entire day" schedule. So I end up either taking a taxi or grabbing a ride from someone. But I use public transport when I do have to commute.

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Dryki on August 12, 2008 - 1:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

but family will insist on holding get togethers at some point over holiday weekends...

Or you don't go. Using a car less doesn't change the paradigm. Ditching the car does.

Linear programming tells us that the "solution" is never a compromise, but always an extreme. Switching paradigms is jumping to new maximum/minimum.

cfm in Gray, ME

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embryonic on August 12, 2008 - 2:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Being pedantic, linear programming relies on the fact that there is always one global optimum that occurs at a corner of the constraint simplex; in some circumstances there can be equal global optima not at a corner. But that's a minor quibble.

I was more commenting on the irony that my family choose dates that makes getting to them by public transport difficult rather than easy. Commuting day in,day out without using a car is a bigger change than what happens four or five exceptional days a year.

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ThatsItImout on August 12, 2008 - 2:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"Using a car less doesn't change the paradigm. Ditching the car does."

If your talking about the paradigm of Peak Oil, and your talking only about American cars, no, it doesn't.

RC

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mcain6925 on August 12, 2008 - 10:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Linear programming tells us that the "solution" is never a compromise, but always an extreme. Switching paradigms is jumping to new maximum/minimum.

Having used linear programming as a tool professionally, three comments:

  1. The intersections of the constraint planes (thinking of the problem geometrically) are indeed compromises. At the optimal solution, many different constraints may bind.
  2. For a planner, learning which constraints are binding at the optimal solution is at least as valuable as the optimal variable values themselves because they suggest options for doing better, and
  3. The space of potential solutions in the real world is seldom convex. In the LP world, there is always a path from where you are to where you want to be such that you are better off at each step. In the real world, not always true.
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PaulS on August 12, 2008 - 3:09pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hmmm...was this before or after the bus beheading in Manitoba...?

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vtpeaknik on August 12, 2008 - 3:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Compare the number of bus beheadings to the number of people killed in boring old car accidents?

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PaulS on August 12, 2008 - 5:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yup. Boring is, well, boring. Under the radar. Way under the radar, buried somewhere down in Earth's core.

It's not a dry quantitative thing. It's a weighted comparison. Think for example of all the expensive creepy gear some parents buy to track their kids, and all the expensive amber-alert signs along major highways all across the country - even though said gear and said signs deal with only the rarest of hazards. And yet those same parents think nothing of driving the kids across the state and back for no real reason at all. Surely, then, it should be no great surprise if one's family reacts: take the bus? you must be off your meds!

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calgarydude on August 12, 2008 - 6:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

One of the local news programs came up with some stats. Since 2000 on Greyhound buses in Canada there have been:

  • 3 assaults
  • 1 attempted hijacking (talk about being stupid)
  • and 1 murder (the beheading incident)

Travelling by bus never worries me - in January, I travelled by Greyhound on exactly the same route where the murder occurred and it was a totally uneventful trip.

Walking in the woods is a different story. Bears recently seem to be developing a taste for people around here... that's why I don't plan to "run for the hills" when PO hits :)

Bear attacks

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mcain6925 on August 12, 2008 - 9:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Not necessarily contradictory. A million people added to the Front Range area in the last 20 years, the next million forecast to happen in less than 15 years. Rail goes to only a limited number of places, largely runs along areas that are already developed and unlikely to see large scale re-development, so some expansion of the road system is necessary. I-25 is the only meaningful north-south highway, and will always get a lot of attention.

40% of the state highways' lane-miles are rated poor or worse for condition, much of that in the rural parts of the state where mass transit isn't an option. Unless you're willing to abandon the rural counties, where are the diversions going to come from?

I'm also a big fan of mass transit; but realistically, am a bigger fan of wind, cleaner coal, and cars with a 40-mile electric range.

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AlanfromBigEasy on August 12, 2008 - 11:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

unlikely to see large scale re-development, so some expansion of the road system is necessary

In the next twenty years, perhaps only a dozen years;

Only if zoning prevents redevelopment. Almost every US city (and certainly Denver) could and should have pockets of significantly higher density. High rises next to most stations with multi-story (tapering down to 2 & 3 story) multi-family housing for a quarter mile around each rail station would be the stereotype. Lots of street level retail in walkable neighborhoods around each station. Not much "Park & Ride" at most stations, the space is better used for homes & commercial.

Almost all of the "rural" development around Denver is just Exurban sprawl and should be (and likely will be) abandoned. Rural living with urban jobs.

Many rural roads could go to one lane maintained and a "pull over" lane when another rancher came in the other direction. Others back to gravel. Asphalt can be, and is, upgraded to fuel oil and even diesel. Too valuable to use much on rural farm roads.

Raise that number of "poor" from 40% to 95% while streetcars are brought back to every town of 25,000. Once rail is established, shut I-25 down to 4 lanes near Denver and 2 lanes further out.

Take two lane streets and convert one lane into a 2 way bike lane (spend some precious asphalt improving that side as part of the conversion) and make the other side one way street.

Draconian yes, but it is the best option we have at this late date.

Look at the implications of ELM and consider that the USA may get less than it's proportionate share of imported oil.

Best Hopes for not holding too tight for too long onto high energy sprawl development,

Alan

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195 comments on DrumBeat: August 12, 2008

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