BIKE: The should-be intelligent transportation solutions lobby

[Patrick Goetz]

Mike Dahmus wrote:
> 
> Your analogy sucks.
> 
> In this case, you know damn well what my preference would be if I were 
> czar:
> 
> 1. Don't built those highways at all
> [...]
> 999. Build them as toll roads
> 1000. Build them as free roads
> 

Of course I know this.  This is why my analogy *doesn't* suck.  My point 
is why are you expending any energy on option #999 when you should be 
throwing all your weight behind #1 or #2?


> The problem is that for 85% of the voting population out there, #1 is 
> simply not on their radar screen. The hard-core SOS guys, yes. But 
> everybody else thinks we need these roads either way. Period.
>

Of course.  We (you, I, some of the folks on this list) have spent years 
studying these issues, hence know more about it than (what Harlan 
Ellison likes to call) The Great Unwashed.  The average Joe sits in 
front of the boob tube until bedtime and then complains about the 
traffic every morning when driving from his cul-de-sac off 360 to his 
office park on 183.  These people need some learnin and edjamacation, 
and they're not going to get it if no one but me is talking about what a 
real solution looks like.  If enough people stay on the theme of more 
roads will only make our transportation problems worse, cul-de-sac Joe 
might start to listen.  If it's just me, then he's going to think I'm 
just another kook talking about alien abductions.  As opined by Arlo 
Guthrie in Alice's Restaurant, 3 people is a conspiracy, but 4 a 
movement.  If you sign up, that leaves 2 slots to fill, as all the 
Leander Zephyr advocates have already slunk back in to the woodwork, 
having achieved the choo-choo nirvana they craved.

> So in the real world, we're left with choosing between #999 and #1000 on 
> that list.

I simply don't understand why we continue to complacently stand by while 
the expenditure of huge amounts of money on clearly failed solutions is 
accepted as the status quo.  And it's not even the case that anyone is 
trying to change the expenditure equations.  I would be more than happy 
if 30% of the CAMPO budget were earmarked for mass transit and bike/ped 
improvements; it's not.  Less than 8% of the CAMPO budget is for public 
transportation, and that amount includes the Capital Metro sales tax! 
This means that -- aside from the sales tax -- effectively  0% of the 
CAMPO budget is for mass transit.  0-f*cking-percent!

There is no one that won't agree that more roads will only increase our 
car dependency, and even most conservatives agree that our dependence on 
foreign oil is a huge problem.  This is why a senate panel chaired by 
celebrated liberal Jesse Helms concluded that our dependence on foreign 
oil was the nation's #1 national security risk.  I read recently that if 
the cost of keeping troops in the Persian gulf were factored in to the 
price of gas, the cost would be around $7/gallon, so it's also costing 
us a lot of money.  And the only reason that the terrorist threat even 
exists is precisely because we have troops in the Persian gulf, as this 
upsets Muslim fundamentalists (who apparently haven't gotten over the 
crusades yet and view infidels in the holy land as a problem worthy of 
jihad).

If expanding roadway capacity actually solved transportation problems, 
then the terrorism, the 43,000 people killed on the roadways each year, 
the billions of dollars spent on useless military crap, the thousands of 
people killed in the middle east, and side effect of the entire rest of 
the world hating us might make it all worth it, but IT DOESN'T.  All 
we're doing is squandering precious farmland, polluting the air, sending 
our wealth overseas to people of dubious moral character, and creating a 
very inhuman and inhumane living environment for what is projected to be 
a majority of the region's population by 2030.    This is MADNESS, and 
by arguing #999 vs. #1000, you are a willing participant in the madness. 
  CUT IT OUT.  :)