Last month the New York Times’ Kashmir Hill published a major story on how GM collects driver behavior data then sells access (through LexisNexis) to insurance companies, which will then jack…
Definitely but there’s practical limitations to implementing large scale public transit in the US even if the desire to build it existed, which I would argue it doesn’t at a large enough scale to make it happen.
I’d like to call your optimism inspiring but from where I sit it looks more like delusion. Don’t get me wrong I would love a huge public transit buildout in the US, I just don’t see any realistic path to making it a reality in the current political and economic climate. I also don’t see that changing within a decade or more at minimum.
No argument from me. I’m probably insane. But I’m not under oath, or doing a job, or undertaking a responsibility; I’m just me, talking to strangers in a public chat room. Why should I limit myself to the practical? Is there a rule against expressing dreams in this room?
And I agree, even if I convinced everyone overnight, and we had the willpower to do it, I’m still proposing infrastructure changes that I may not see finished in my life, but building for the next generation is still noble to me, in my insanity.
The US is not special. The fact that the country is big doesn’t matter; people still cluster together in cities just like they do everywhere else. The only things that makes transit harder here than other places is the degree of regulatory capture by the automobile and fossil fuels industries and the degree to which the public has been brainwashed by their propaganda.
It does matter that the US is one big country, but even if it didn’t you still made my point for me. The other things you listed are just as large obstacles as the size of the country itself and there is no easy solution to those other problems but you just blew past them as if naming them would make them go away. The fact that you identified them correctly doesn’t mean you have any realistic chance of overcoming them.
Definitely but there’s practical limitations to implementing large scale public transit in the US even if the desire to build it existed, which I would argue it doesn’t at a large enough scale to make it happen.
It’ll never happen if we all agree it’ll never happen. I like taking about them, as it’s my way of making it more likely to happen
I’d like to call your optimism inspiring but from where I sit it looks more like delusion. Don’t get me wrong I would love a huge public transit buildout in the US, I just don’t see any realistic path to making it a reality in the current political and economic climate. I also don’t see that changing within a decade or more at minimum.
No argument from me. I’m probably insane. But I’m not under oath, or doing a job, or undertaking a responsibility; I’m just me, talking to strangers in a public chat room. Why should I limit myself to the practical? Is there a rule against expressing dreams in this room?
And I agree, even if I convinced everyone overnight, and we had the willpower to do it, I’m still proposing infrastructure changes that I may not see finished in my life, but building for the next generation is still noble to me, in my insanity.
The US is not special. The fact that the country is big doesn’t matter; people still cluster together in cities just like they do everywhere else. The only things that makes transit harder here than other places is the degree of regulatory capture by the automobile and fossil fuels industries and the degree to which the public has been brainwashed by their propaganda.
It does matter that the US is one big country, but even if it didn’t you still made my point for me. The other things you listed are just as large obstacles as the size of the country itself and there is no easy solution to those other problems but you just blew past them as if naming them would make them go away. The fact that you identified them correctly doesn’t mean you have any realistic chance of overcoming them.