Eigth and State

The Bell Curve - Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray Anyone read it? What do you think about it?

^----"Are you saying oils not well in the housing market?" No, that's not what I'm saying. If you want to know about the housing market, ask a realtor. What I am saying is that the number of housing units in Montgomery County, from Jeff's graph, nearly follows a parabolic curve from 1950 to 2000, and I did a mathematical projection of that trend. An interesting thing is that the shape of the graph mimics the projected peak oil curve. Coincidence? It also mimics the population curve. It is clear that the 1950's and 1960's were the high growth periods, and there is hardly any growth at all today, if any. There seems to be a system in place, and I'm trying to get a handle on it. The parabolic model matches the data from 1950 to 2000 pretty well.

Thanks for sharing. I like the other newspaper articles "Free treatment for deafness" and "They need people in California."

Cincinnati's Westwood Northern Boulevard was built in the 1930's as a bypass around congested Harrison Avenue and the City of Cheviot. Unlike modern highways, it has homes developed on both sides, on street parking, and trucks are prohibited. It was itself superceded by the construction of I-74. Westwood Northern Boulevard has one grade-separated interchange, at Race Road. Westwood Northern Boulevard carries mostly rush hour traffic between downtown and the near western suburbs. It never developed any significant business and is mostly empty during the day. That 1957 Dayton Map resembles a plan in Cincinnati's 1948 Metropolitan Master Plan. Springdale Road was supposed to be widened as part of a ring road. Instead, I-275 was built parallel to Springdale Road.

I couldn't help but notice the smooth, parabolic curve in housing numbers in Jeffrey's graph above. I went ahead and made a mathmatical projection, based on the average second derivative using Jeffrey's numbers. If this model reflects reality, it looks like housing will peak sometime this decade, if it hasn't already. Sound familiar?

^---- The difference in that story is that California was able to take water from the mountain areas by gravity, that is, by building a conduit for water to flow downhill. The western cities of Las Vegas, etc., are at a higher elevation than the great lakes. They cannot take the water by gravity; it must be pumped. Pumping water is expensive and requires large amounts of energy. Therefore, I wouldn't worry too much about the western cities taking great lakes water.

^---"I agree that the situation is more complex, but the economic downturn can only last so long." Not necessarily. See the Peak Oil thread. "...escalating gas prices will only further the development of hydrogen fuel cells." Gimme a break. Hydrogen also comes from petroleum and costs more than gasoline. There is no alternative to petroleum powered internal combustion engines in terms of range, cost, and ease of use. High gas prices do not encourage the use of so-called alternatives. If the alternatives are unaffordable now, they will be even more unaffordable when accompanied by high gas prices. Getting back to the topic of streetcars, my point is that high gasoline prices will not necessarily translate into higher transit ridership in the long term.

I would be cautious about placing so much weight on gas prices in a transit discussion. At first glance, one might say, "With gas prices so high, how am I going to get to work? We need to build more transit." However, the situation is more complicated than that, and gas prices change everything. For example, how many jobs will be lost due to high gas prices? There are two schools of thought. One says that more people will stop driving and use transit. Indeed, transit ridership is up. The other school of thought is that the economy as a whole will turn down. That seems to be happening as well, in combination.

^---- Also to put things in perspective: If you make just $2,200 dollars a year... ...You are richer than 85% of the people in the world.

Believe it or not, the 1948 Metropolitan Master Plan called for a ring of parking garages around the downtown central business district, and a ring of surface lots around that, followed by a ring of freeways and ramps. The plan was more or less carried out. At that point in 1948, we still had streetcars! I had the pleasure of visiting 10 European cities and 2 Asian cities last year and the relative lack of surface parking lots was very noticeable.

^---- If I may add to that, the chart above shows the carbon footprint in pounds per passenger-mile. One can reduce his carbon footprint in two ways: 1. Reduce pounds per mile (Switch from an SUV to a Prius) 2. Reduce miles. (Move closer to work)

^-----"Time off in between classes is spent studying and doing homework..." Uncle Rando Posts: 10426 (11.223 per day) :wink:

There's another very subtle but important reason why the Cincinnati streetcars went out of business, and that was government price fixing. On one hand, the City set a minimum wage for motormen, or streetcar drivers. At the same time, the City set maximum ticket prices. The City literally made the streetcars unprofitable. Documentation from the 1930's says that the streetcars were OVERCROWDED. The companies were prohibited from raising ticket prices, and had no money for increasing capacity. The travelling public responded by buying automobiles, which for the most part are not regulated. The streetcar companies were eventually bought by the city and became Queen City Metro, which today carries 10% of the traffic of the predecessor streetcar companies. Streetcars enjoyed a resurgence during WWII out of necessity as gasoline was rationed. They put some of their retired equipment back in service. This made the decline from 1945 to 1950 look even more dramatic.

I don't know where to start. Supposedly, our economy is growing slightly. Whenever I go to West Chester, I see a new building. However, buildings are being abandoned in other places, and there are numerous buildings that are vacant but not abandoned. If we are growing, the number of occupied buildings should be rising. But, after seeing pictures like this, I have to wonder if we have peaked, or are about to peak.

"No matter what the final method of payment will be, it needs to be integrated with the bus systems" The more complicated it is, the less likely it will be built! And remember, the financing has to be in place from the start.

All of these fare collecting ideas have a cost. Even automatic ticket machines cost money to install, and then are subject to vandalism and theft, and they also take up valuable street space. Gee, this fare collecting thing is only one part of the streetcar, and it's already getting complicated. According to the city council motions, the financing has to be in place before construction, and we on this board can't even figure out how to collect fares! (We are pretending that we are in charge, of course.) Isn't there ANY way to collect operating funds besides fares? Dedicate parking meter funds to the streetcar? Gasoline taxes? Property taxes? A couple million dollars per year is pretty small compared to the city budget. Seriously, the fare collection is a major drawback. What if you had to pay everytime you started up your car? I still say make every effort to make it free.

^I was driving through Westwood on business with a group including a woman from Mason. She said, "These houses look pretty nice. I will look into moving here to cut down the long commute from Mason." So, yes, people are looking to shorten commutes. But that's not the only factor. Most commuters don't drive from the suburbs to the city, but from the suburbs to another place in the suburbs. I don't know how all of this is going to play out, but I expect big changes.

"What is the beef folks have w/them? Taxes?" Probably stadium syndrome and a general distrust of government. No one seems to oppose the streetcars specifically.

"I like the concept of buying a ticket at a stop and handing it to the guy when you board. That only takes a second." That still forces everyone to enter at the front door. You can only board so many people per minute. It takes more than a second. When I used to ride Metro, the trip consistently took 45 minutes, compared to 25 minutes driving. Most of that 20 minute difference was slowing down for a stop, boarding and paying, and accelerating again. A stop with a lot of people would take several minutes. Invariably there is at least one person who has to hold things up for one reason or another. Keep in mind that you are also paying the salary of the driver at stops, as well as the capital cost of the equipment. Saving a few minutes on each loop may be enough to maintain service with fewer vehicles!

I don't doubt the article, but I don't see it in my area.

If anything, it's the other way around. Cities are dying from the inside out. Sure, downtown areas are doing ok, but first-ring suburbs are hurting. I still see outward expansion, even in the face of high gasoline prices.

"Already in the US, car-dependent cities are dying from the outside in," Professor Newman said. Examples?

Early streetcars in Cincinnati had a driver and a conductor. The conductor collected fares while the streetcar was moving. This has the advantage of speed. Streetcars switched to one-man operation to save on labor cost, but at the expense of speed.

We a long way off from this point, but definitely make the first week free. On a few routes, Metro Buses actually act like parking shuttles. For example, the 74 stops at a park and ride lot on the very last stop before downtown. Typcally, 20 people get on at that one stop, and they get off at either 4th street or 6th street. They save on parking, and save on walking. The trip to downtown is a bonus. It would not surprise me at all if some buildings in Over-the-Rhine came down for cheap parking, instead of being repopulated.

Somewhere along this thread we already talked about fares, and it was mentioned that the act of collecting fares itself is a drawback to mass transit. On metro buses, if it takes an average of 20 seconds to collect fares for each of 50 people, that's an additional 16 minutes added to the trip! My first trip on a modern streetcar happened in Potsdam, Germany. They had an excellent system, and even had electronic displays at the stops telling when the next car would arrive. However, I couldn't figure out the payment system. I took the streetcar for free the first time, because I couldn't figure it out. I ended up paying double on the second trip. There were ticket vending machines at the stops. Once on board, you had your ticket stamped by another machine. Presumably, an agent would check to see if tickets were stamped. Sure, it's easy for a regular rider, but really hard for a newcomer, especially one that can't read the language. The first ride on a streetcar is intimidating. A had a conversation with an employee of Queen City Metro. He said that his biggest hassle is with people who want to make one stop, then continue the trip in the same direction. They have to pay twice, yet they don't want to, and they always argue that they have already paid. Metro does not accept transfers for a second ride in the same direction. If the purpose of the streetcar is really to redevelop Over-the-Rhine, maybe making it fareless should be considered. Hey, if it's going to compete with highways, it just about has to be. Queen City Metro makes about 17% of its operating costs in fares, and 4% in advertising. Unfortunately, most of the ads are targeted toward low-income people. If the streetcar attracts the young professionals like it's supposed to, maybe the advertising rates could be higher. Finally, be careful about using the streetcar as a shuttle to Bengals games. It could backfire, and we could end up with a bunch of surface parking lots in Over-the-Rhine.