^ Good points.

 

To add to Rob's comments, I am using my tax refund to pay off my last six car payments (yes, it was a 60-month loan). Now that I don't feel the need to drive my car because I'm no longerl financing the purchase, I feel less inclined to drive it. You know, drive more to amortize the fixed costs on a per-mile basis.... With fewer miles, I am searching for a better deal on my car insurance, working under the assumption I will be driving less than 5,000 miles per year from now on.

 

I could sell the car, but after my kitty got terminally sick a couple weeks ago, I realized I still need my car for emergencies. There is a rental car agency within a 3-minute bicycle ride, but it's not always open. Plus, my parents are pushing 80 and while they live on a bus route, it's more than an hour away from me -- too long again if an emergency arises.

 

So, I am keeping my car, but am going to get the cost of owning it to as low as possible. If I can get the insurance to $50/month or less and drive it less than 300 miles per month, that's $30/tank at current prices. That's a huge savings over the $240 in gas, $145 car payment, and $165 insurance (plus unexpected repairs) I'm paying per month right now.

 

An RTA monthly express pass is just $54, although RTA fares are going up in July. Even if it goes up to $70 or so, I'm still saving a bundle of cash.

Put your vanity on the shelf, and shop carefully for a good used car. I've never traded in a vehicle that I still owned money on, and the last three, I've written a check on the spot for the full purchase price and driven the car home the same day I found it. I haven't bought a new car since 1969, and I've had fewer problems with the used ones I've bought since then, than with the new ones I bought before (That may be somewhat due to the fact that I don't buy fast cars and beat the crap out of them, any more).

 

My husband and I own two cars between us, and they are both paid off.  My car is a 1997 Cavalier, and his is a 1999 Saturn.  Most of our friends drive newer and fancier cars, but they also seem to have more debt and less able to go to shows and such.  We orignally planned on driving them until they "died."  However, we will be selling me car within the next few months and just owning the Saturn between us.  When it's time to replace this car, we will probably buy a used one. 

 

I just can't see spending tons and tons of money on something that will just go down in value.  I can't imagine taking out a large or long loan for something like this.

^ Especially for something that we don't use for 90 percent of the day.

My dad, over the last 5-6 years has gone on an automobile rehabing kick.  So everyone in the family (parents, myself, and my brothers) are all driving used cars.  I guess my middle brother has the most recent automobile.  He bought a 2002(?) Honda that only had 5 or 10 K miles on it.

Otherwise the rest of us in the family all have cars with over 100K on them

My dad, over the last 5-6 years has gone on an automobile rehabing kick.  So everyone in the family (parents, myself, and my brothers) are all driving used cars.  I guess my middle brother has the most recent automobile.  He bought a 2002(?) Honda that only had 5 or 10 K miles on it.

Otherwise the rest of us in the family all have cars with over 100K on them

 

Makes good sense, especially if you can handle routine maintenance at home. In 1991 I bought a lightly-used, low-mileage Chevy S-10 with a 4cyl engine and 5-speed manual trans (33mpg on trips, 28 overall). I drove it for 12 years, put 130K on it, and the guy I sold it to is still driving it 3 years later. He's a better auto mechanic than I am, especially in electronic stuff, and I was getting too perplexed with quirky things that were coming up.

 

A lot of newer cars will run 200K or more with good routine maintenance. That's a huge improvement over most cars of the fifties and before, that started to nickel-and-dime owners after about 60K, apparently no matter how well they were taken care of. To keep running reliably and economically, most of them needed new spark plugs, distributor points and condenser every 25K or so, and recommended oil change interval was usually every 1,000 miles. Beyond 75K, you could expect to shell out big bucks for an engine overhaul or at least a valve grind, things that are mostly unheard of now.

 

Sorry, sometimes I get going about the good old days and just can't stop.

Unfortunately, this survey fails to ask the question "What about the cost of the gasoline it takes you to get to the lake, hauling your boat with that SUV or dual-cab Pickup with the mega-hp V-8 and the duel-wheels? This survey is only valid for those who park their boats season long in the water. And even then, they still have to drive to and from.

 

http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2006/05/15/daily6.html

 

Survey: Boat owners not letting gas prices sink summer plans

Business First of Columbus - 1:54 PM EDT Monday

 

A survey of boat owners shows gas prices aren't likely to affect their presence in the water much this summer.

 

The survey from Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. asked 2,544 power boat, bass boat, motorcycle and all-terrain vehicle owners about gas prices.

 

The results from boat owners showed gas prices would have to rise another $2.70 a gallon before they would dock their boats. They said they'd be on the water just 25 minutes less per trip this summer, according to the survey.

 

...

 

More at:

http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2006/05/15/daily6.html 

>Makes good sense, especially if you can handle routine maintenance at home. In 1991 I bought a lightly-used, low-mileage

 

I mentioned in another thread how much guys who didn't go to college making under $25K a year seem to run out and immediately buy new trucks with $500/mo payments.  On one hand a lot of these guys also have some old car that they're working on but then they blow so much of their income on these new trucks they never seem to get the old thing together.  Guys in the army who are overseas come back and buy new trucks and the things sit there for 11 months out of the year.     

 

>A lot of newer cars will run 200K or more with good routine maintenance. That's a huge improvement over most cars of the fifties and before, that started to nickel-and-dime owners after about 60K, apparently no matter how well they were taken care of. To keep running reliably and economically, most of them needed new spark plugs, distributor points and condenser every 25K or so, and recommended oil change interval was usually every 1,000 miles. Beyond 75K, you could expect to shell out big bucks for an engine overhaul or at least a valve grind, things that are mostly unheard of now.

 

Don't forget timing chains, carburetors, and all the body rust.  3-speed transmissions went out all the time too.  I remember having the floors rust through wasn't all that rare, and you'd just cover the hole with a floor mat.  I would like to see statistics but it seems to me that around 1985 all the muscle cars and boats from the 70's started evaporating from Ohio's roadways and they've since sustained roughly the same stubborn presence numbers-wise.  It's incredible to see those pieces of crap still limping around, sometimes with vintage bald white-wall tires, because I remember a whole lot of them looked that bad back in the 80's.  Where have these cars been hiding out this whole time? 

 

 

 

^I have a 1990 2door Jeep Cherokee with 236k miles on it and runnin strong :)

So I'm sitting on my couch a minute ago, eating breakfast before I go to work and watching the Today Show. Katie Couric is interviewing John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil about rising fuel prices and oil company record profits. Katie asks about how much of the fuel shortage and resulting increase in prices is incumbent on the consumer's lifestyle (long commutes, using fuel inefficient vehicles etc.) to which Hofmeister responds (I'll quote to the best of my recollection) "People spend a lot of time sitting in traffic lines. That wastes a lot of fuel. Mass transit goes largely unused. That wastes a lot of fuel."

 

Are you freakin' kidding me!?!

 

He's implicating mass transit as the cause of wasting fuel! Granted, some systems go under utilized and need to be tweaked to better serve their customer base-that might increase ridership. But an oil exec to take a shot at mass transit as being the villain in rising fuel prices... :ass:

 

^ Wow.

 

Shell is one of the few oil companies that still has its head stuck in the sand (literally!) when it comes to peak oil. ExxonMobil is another. They want us to keep on driving, move farther out to the exurbs, and stay addicted.

 

Most of the other oil companies are promoting alternative fuels, advocating conservation and acknowledging the future will be difficult with tightening/declining supplies will be unable to keep up with demand.

but the basic statement has some merit, that if "mass transit goes largely unused, that wastes a lot of fuel."

 

i'm not defending shell by any means, but i think it is a common misconception that mass transit is hugely energy efficient all the time.  it obviosuly depends on what type of bus/train/fuel source/age/etc and loads, but even many of the new "clean diesel" buses only get 4 mpg.  So, if the bus is full of people, this is great.  If there is 1 person on the bus, then the fuel used to move that person isn't that effective.

 

similarly, the rapid takes the same amount of electricity to power one car, whether it is standing room only or empty.

I don't read that quote as being anti-transit.  Rather, it seems like Hofmeister is saying there are plenty of empty buses out there burning diesel fuel, which there are.  Now, if he said we should get rid of the buses to speed up traffic, THAT would be anti-transit. 

 

The real problem, as we enlightened folk know, is not that people aren't taking the bus, but our physical built environment is not conducive (coercive?) to riding transit. 

The Shell CEO's statistic remains as disingenuous. Here's the defining statistic: energy use per passenger mile. That statistic is based on existing passenger loads and how far that passenger is traveling. Per passenger mile is the transportation industry's standard measurement to accurately measure different modes of transportation regardless of market share.

 

On that score, taking the bus or train is still 7-9 times more energy efficient than driving cars and SUVs, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Problem is, few are patient enough to sit through an explanation such as this, and more respond to the kind of one-liners that the Shell CEO said this morning.

Here's a summary example from Milwaukee:

 

How Fuel Efficient are Buses?

If you compare a bus to a car, you may be shocked to see that an average MCTS bus gets 4.5 miles per gallons of diesel fuel.  Yet, with just six passengers, a bus can be significantly more fuel efficient.  If a car averaged 25 miles per gallon and traveled five miles with a single occupant, it would still average 25 passenger miles per gallon.  If a bus traveled the same five miles, it would need 1.06 gallons of fuel.  But once a bus had six passengers traveling the same distance, its fuel economy changes to 28.3 passenger miles per gallon.  All MCTS buses run on diesel fuel and require over four million gallons of fuel annually.

 

Who wants to figure out RTAs numbers based on last year's ridership numbers?  I'm sure that on an overall basis, the bus is much more efficient.  However, on an individual route level, there are still routes that are underutilized overall or at certain parts of the day. 

 

On another note, does anyone know how much energy it takes to operate the rapid?

I don't read that quote as being anti-transit.  Rather, it seems like Hofmeister is saying there are plenty of empty buses out there burning diesel fuel, which there are.  Now, if he said we should get rid of the buses to speed up traffic, THAT would be anti-transit. 

 

The real problem, as we enlightened folk know, is not that people aren't taking the bus, but our physical built environment is not conducive (coercive?) to riding transit. 

 

I largely agree with you. The problem is in an interview meant to explain why prices are so high and why consumers are feeling the pinch, it seems disingenuous to infer transit as a cause (even though you could argue it legitimately is) when it can be a major part of the solution. It's a bit of public policy misdirection. And yes, we are at the mercy of our poorly conceived environment, but until we can make wholesale change in the scattered way in which we live, comprehensive transit will be part of the cure to oil dependency, not the cause.

What about rush hour when buses and trains are completely packed full of people to the point where you can't even get a seat and have to stand? Even if there are times where not many people are riding, certain times of the day certainly make up for it.

^ A good point. One thing that transit agencies have come to learn is that if midday trips are not offered, some rush-hour commuters don't choose transit because they don't want to be stranded downtown or wherever. Thus, even if the midday trips are sparsely used, they are offered in order to gain the rush-hour ridership.

On the "Downeaster" passenger rail route between Boston & Portland (Maine) they recently adjusted their schedule to accomodate late night travelers to and from Boston who want to attend a Red Sox game at Fenway "Pahk".  The late departure from Boston now allows fans to go to a game and not have to drive into Boston.... saving them the headache of finding and then paying for "pahking".

 

This is simply watching and listening to your passenger base and adjusting service to not only meet their needs but also attract more riders.  It all goes back to providing fast, frequent, timely and reliable service.

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Some boats are really gas hogs. About 1980, my aunt moved from Baltimore to Austin, Texas, and took her houseboat with her. It was pretty fair-sized, and had two Chrysler Marine V8 gasoline engines. They motored from the marina in Baltimore's Inner Harbor to St. Petersburg, Florida via the intracoastal waterway, and then had the boat trucked to Lake Travis. She said that on the water they averaged about 1 mpg. With today's prices, she probably would just sell the boat rather than spend that much.

^Theres two great days in a boat owners life. The day he buys it...and the day he sells it!!!

    ^----Get a canoe, a rowboat, or a sailboat. The best boat is not the biggest, the most expensive, or the one with the most features. It's the one you use the most.  :-D

 

  This article really goes to show how the system works. Numerous articles say that people aren't changing their lifestyles - they still drive to work like they always did. But they ARE changing their lifestyles - they are cutting back on other things. One less trip to the lake per summer, multiplied by 70 million boaters, can save a lot of gasoline.

 

 

The older folks here will remember the 1970s, which was another era when rising fuel prices impacted society.

 

One of the big impacts of the "oil price shock" was via inflation, as the high oil prices drove up prices in other things as well, due to transportation costs and the cost of things made with oil (which is a lot of things). 

 

The focus here on this board is more on transportation, but oil price shocks will have a real broad effect on the economy at large. 

 

Another interesting thing was that in the 1970s, the "energy crisis" dovetailed into a few other social movements such as the environmental movement and the back-to-the land movment and the interest in doing something about urban srprawl (even back then), via what was called at the time "ecological planning", as well as the release of "The Limits to Growth" (based on the fact there are finite resources), so there was quite an interest in alternative energy and conservation and new ways of doing things (like the interest in light rail and mass transit as well as energy efficient housing and so forth).

 

Nowadays we might be in a worse situation due to the nature of our society seems to be less open to change....we seem to be more in denial now than we where back then about energy shortages.

The older folks here will remember the 1970s, which was another era when rising fuel prices impacted society.

 

Not just prices, availability. It was important to plan ahead, in some cases.

 

I made a weekend trip to Cleveland, and didn't bother to fill up on Saturday. Sunday when I got ready to head home, I couldn't find an open gas station. I was quite a ways toward home and running on fumes when I finally found a station that was open. I experienced some anxiety on that trip.

This is going to hit the airline industry hard. We need an alternative. Damnit.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060607/greenspan_oil.html?.v=8

 

AP

Greenspan: Energy Costs May Stunt Economy

Wednesday June 7, 11:37 am ET

By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press Writer

Greenspan: U.S. Has Weathered High Oil Prices, but Some Adverse Impact Beginning to Show

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Wednesday that while the country has been able to absorb sharp increases in oil prices, high energy costs are beginning to stunt economic growth.

 

But he also said sharply higher oil prices have not produced any "serious erosion" of world economic activity.

 

"The United States, especially, has been able to absorb the huge implicit tax of rising oil prices so far," Greenspan told a Senate hearing. It was his first appearance before Congress since leaving the Federal Reserve in January.

 

...

 

More at:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060607/greenspan_oil.html?.v=8

Hey Iraq's most wanted just got shot and killed. I think the gas prices are supposed to go down today... I haven't been out so I don't know.

^ I don't see the correlation.

I don't really either but I was watching NBC news at about 4am when they announced he was shot and killed and they said the price per barrel was going to be lowered. Something to do with more stability I guess.

^ Actually, it had more to do with rising domestic inventories of crude oil and unleaded gasonline.

True, but the thinking is also that the death of Al Zarqhawi will somehow lessen the insurgency in Iraq and stabilize the oil industry there, which has been a common target.  Not sure if I buy that totally.

 

 

As CBS put it, the sabre rattling in Iran and instability in Iraq have contributed  $5-10 dollars to a barrel of oil (They called it a terror premium).  If Nigeria, Iraq, and Iran all calmed down, and if Venevaula eased off their desire to nationalize their oil industry, oil would drop back down to the low $50s (mind you that's alot of ifs and the likelyhood of all happening at once is on par with all 3 Cleveland pro teams winning their respective league's titles over the course of one year)

 

BTW, a bunch EU countries raised their interest rates today. The thought being this would slow down inflation and economic development and thusly slow the demand for oil (projects cost money, more cost mean fewer projects, thus less need of oil related products).  We'll see.

That, by the way, represents a five-year loss of $43.7 billion!

 

Take note also that while America's airlines are saddled with losses, Europe's airlines are making small profits. I suspect an important reason for that is European airlines don't have to serve short-haul markets (less than 300 miles) whereas U.S. airlines do in order to preserve feeder traffic. Instead, in Europe, their short-haul flights are actually fast trains linked to airports, downtowns and small towns.

 

Few things are as efficient as an airliner that cruises at 30,000+ feet. Conversely, when an airliner ascends and descends, that is when it burns most of its fuel. Thus, short-haul flights that spend only a few minutes at the optimum altitude are incredibly expensive. That was the case even before the price of oil started rising several years ago. Now, if U.S. airlines were smart, they'd be politically supporting a major  investment program in high-speed rail. The future of the airline industry may depend on it.

And yet you will hear no one in Congress or the Administration complain about the airline industry's inability to turn a profit in light of how heavily they have been "subsidized"..... especially post-9/11.

 

Funny how the criticism they throw at Amtrak and mass transit doesn't apply to aviation.

I just got back from Paris and it cost me almost 100 Euro's to fill up my rental car.  So well over $100 dollars since the dollar is about 75 cents to the Euro right now.

    "Funny how the criticism they throw at Amtrak and mass transit doesn't apply to aviation."

 

    Could it be because our Congressmen are always flying back and forth between their hometowns and Washington, D.C., yet few of them have ever ridden Amtrak?  :wink:

 

 

Actually, quite a few Senators and Congressmen are bigtime Amtrak supporters, and recognize that airlines are heavily subsidized.  Right now, I'm thinking Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and former Sen. Jon Corzine of New Jersey, because those guys actually ride/rode the train back to their homes--mostly because it was a REALISTIC option. 

 

 

I never hear about people using Amtrak. It seems like people fly a lot more.

That's usually the case when the federal government provides aviation up-front capital of several billion dollars, then follows that kick-start with a capital improvement trust fund financed by user taxes in the form of ticket taxes, while local governments absorb many airport expenses (local property taxes, bond financing, insurance, etc).

 

Meanwhile, Amtrak was funded in its first year with very sum (I think $40 million), never provided a capital improvement trust fund, kept Amtrak living from hand-to-mouth for 35 years, while having to own their own stations, yards and, pay freight railroads to use their slow tracks where passenger trains get put in sidings to wait, and has to own/maintain its busiest railroad (Northeast Corridor) where commuter railroads (which run ten times more trains than Amtrak) pay far less than the full costs of using that right of way.

 

Ever wonder why Amtrak can't expand and improve to become a more meaningful part of the transportation system. It's due more from the handcuffs placed on its by the federal government and less by Amtrak's own incompetance. Yet the federal government likes to blame Amtrak for its problems (it is due some to be sure!), when most of blame lies squarely in the mirror those federal officials look into every morning.

 

And the reason why you never hear of people using Amtrak is because you live in Cincinnati, where Amtrak has just three trains per week per direction. In other parts of the nation, like Seattle, Portland, most California cities, St. Louis, Milwaukee, most Illinois cities, most Michigan cities, most New York cities, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, all Northeast Corridor cities, most North Carolina cities, numerous cities in Virginia and others have some decent Amtrak service.

 

The reason why is because those regions have some decent state financial support to pick up the slack from the failings of our federal government. Ohio is the nation's most populous state NOT to provide financial support to Amtrak, hence we have virtually no service. Write your state legislators and governor to find out why we don't.

 

  Not to start bashing Amtrak, but the Cardinal just crosses the southwest corner of Ohio, passing through Oxford, Hamilton, and Cincinnati. Does it even stop at Hamilton anymore?

 

  As far as Ohio is concerned, the only benefit of Amtrak is for Cincinnati people to travel to Chicago or Washington, which they don't do simply because it's easier to drive.

 

  Only a handful of people use the Cardinal from Cincinnati. The only people I have ever heard of to use Amtrak out of Cincinnati are railfans who are more interested in watching passing trains, etc.

 

    Why would Ohio fund a railroad with just one stop in Ohio? Now if we had a Cincinnati - Columbus - Cleveland line that would be a different story.

 

   

I guess that goes back to the whole issue of funding. If they cared enoguh they could build those routes.

    Why would Ohio fund a railroad with just one stop in Ohio? Now if we had a Cincinnati - Columbus - Cleveland line that would be a different story.

 

There is more service across the northern part of the state. Two daily round-trip trains (four total per day) travel from Chicago east to Cleveland. There the routes split, with one round trip going to New York City via Buffalo and the other to Washington D.C. via Pittsburgh. These trains make daily stops in Bryan (only one round trip does), Toledo, Sandusky, Elyria, Cleveland and Alliance (the other round trip stops there). But these trains are scheduled mainly during the hours of midnight and 6 a.m., as we're midway between Chicago and the East Coast. Toledo has some decently scheduled trains, but they seldom run on time due their second-class status with the freight railroads. The rail system is designed to handle 40-60 mph freight trains (though Amtrak travels at 79 mph).

 

If this were Europe, the Pacific Rim and even many Third World countries, we'd have a dozen trains or more operating between Ohio's cities, to Detroit, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Chicago and elsewhere. Yet America funds its rail system at a per-capita rate that's lower than many Third World nations including Iran, Botswana, Bulgaria and some others I'm forgetting. We've got what we've paid for.

Those countries don't have the giant land mass that we do. The infrastructure seems expensive to interconnect cities. I wouldn't mind riding a lightrail throughout a city and I think all U.S. cities should have them but I hate being confined to a seat for more than a few hours and would much prefer flying if it's to another city more than a few hundred miles away.

If you haven't ridden on Amtrak, it's much more comfortable than any airplane.  You have a bigger seat, it's a smooth ride, and you can get up and walk to the diner car at any time.  You don't have to wait around for the stewardess to bring you a 4oz coke. 

 

The TGV in France inches out of the cities on existing passenger lines and then heads onto its own track and goes from about 30mph to 150mph within 90 seconds of reaching the countryside.  Again, the seats and the ride is way more comfortable than an airplane. 

 

In the midwest there are no mountains, there could virtually be perfectly straight and nearly level lines between a few of the cities.  A train reaching 200mph could absolutely toast both driveway-to-driveway vehicular and airline travel between Cincinnati and Chicago or Cleveland.   

Those countries don't have the giant land mass that we do. The infrastructure seems expensive to interconnect cities. I wouldn't mind riding a lightrail throughout a city and I think all U.S. cities should have them but I hate being confined to a seat for more than a few hours and would much prefer flying if it's to another city more than a few hundred miles away.

 

Some common misconceptions here. The population density in Ohio (and probably the entire Midwest) is as great as that of France, with many large cities spaced closely together. That means high speed rail would be a huge success, with air-competitive travel times. Even conventional 80-110 mph rail would be a huge success if new frequencies were added as has been the case in California. This is what is about to happen in Illinois, where two new trains are to be added between Chicago and St. Louis, for a total of 5 round trips.

 

Infrastructure IS expensive...no matter what mode. have you priced an Interstate Highway intersection lately or an airport?? We have spent $2 TRILLION dollars on roads since 1971, when Amtrak is formed, compared to $34 billion for the latter. Yet, as has been pointed out, spending for highways is called an "investment", whgile that for rail is a "subsidy." As if there is some difference!!!

 

Another point to consider is that what you see in Ohio today is far from ideal. Amtrak is a skeletal service that was intended as a means to get the freight railroads out of the passenger business back in 1971 and has been a placeholder that has kept the option of true national service open. We are still debating that last point, as we have to stave off one kill-Amtrak budget after another from successive administrations. Meantime, we have to realize that Amtrak, for all its faults, is only the product of its environment and until there is enough support out there to make a major change, we will continue to have little service here.

 

Then there is the profound change as oil prices climb to historic levels and we come face to face with a peak oil scenario...guess what happens??? Yep, can't fly a plane on coal!!

 

 

I think high-speed rail could really jump start the entire Midwestern economy.  The more I think about it, the more I become a geographic determinist.  A major reason why the Midwest is hurting so bad in this age of air-conditioning without state-sponsored segregation is because we exist in the colder reaches of a temperate zone without real access to the ocean or mountains.  This is the only way I can explain why people move from the Midwest to Texas, New Mexico or Arizona.  Anyway we need to take our liabilities (incredibly flat landscape) and utilize them as best we can.  I think a high speed rail system that connects the primary cities in the region (Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus Cleveland, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Detroit, Twin Cities, St. Louis, etc.) and the Big Ten + campuses (Ann Arbor, South Bend, Lafayette, Champaign, Lansing, Bloomington, Columbia Mo, etc.) would be the best investment the region could make for itself.  Man evening the hand geography dealt him.

^ I completely concur. And since we're all talking about rail travel and ho wit compares with flying, I thought I'd pass along this bit from James Howard Kunstler:

 

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2006/06/riding_the_rail.html

 

June12, 2006,

    After sitting on airplanes for two days, like a mummy in a casket, I took the Amtrak train from Bellingham, Washington, down to Seattle. It was an extravagant relief from harsh inanities of aviation. The train cars were new, clean and luxurious, very unlike the beat-up rolling stock on my usual Hudson River line (Albany to New York City). The seats were better than first-class airplane seats. There was a cafe car serving up hot beverages. The conductors were cheerful, as if they actually liked what they were doing.

 

    The view out the (clean) windows was supernaturally beautiful. Loveliness everywhere. The tracks ran along Puget Sound most of the way. Dark fir-covered mountains spilled down to rocky bays where, here and there, people were digging -- for clams, I supposed. I saw three bald eagles along the way. Also scores of some kind of stately, long-necked wading bird with a vivid black-and-white blaze on its cheeks. At other times we passed through farm fields and orchards. White and pink foxgloves grew wild along tracks most of the way along with yellow broom and phlox.

 

    As we got closer to Seattle, you saw more people in the bays, clamming, running their dogs, hugging their girlfriends. Almost all of them waved at the train as we passed, as if to say, "Notice how glad we are to be here!"

 

    When the train got to the station in downtown Seattle, it just stopped and we got off, without ceremony or painful delay. There was no standing around waiting to be squeezed out of tube, the way they unload an airplane. I caught a taxi outside the station door, and five minutes later I was at my hotel.

 

    This line along the Pacific Northwest corridor is one of very few extant passenger rail lines in the whole USA. There is only one train a day each way between Seattle and Vancouver, Canada and back -- on which Bellingham is a stop. The people in charge would probably just as soon not even run those trains.

 

  But why Americans do not demand to have railroad service all over the nation is one of the abiding mysteries of these crack-up years. What a pleasure it was to travel on that train yesterday. What an amenity it would be if people could travel that way between Cleveland and Columbus, or Atlanta and Birmingham, or Dallas to Denver, or Albany and Boston. What a drag it is struggling to get to the airport, getting processed through like a piece of meat in a grinder, and then struggling off to your destination once you land twenty or thirty miles outside the city you've traveled to -- not to mention the alternative insanity of driving a car three hundred miles, or more, whenever you have to go somewhere in this moronic republic.

What an amenity it would be if people could travel that way between Cleveland and Columbus, or Atlanta and Birmingham, or Dallas to Denver, or Albany and Boston.

 

Kunstler should know there's at least one train a day between half of those city pairs. Of course, Cleveland to Columbus isn't one of them!

 

And there are two round trips on the section between Bellingham and Seattle (not one as Kunstler says), with a third round-trip Amtrak train on the shorter segment between Everett and Seattle (but it doesn't offer local service). Plus, there's two weekday Sounder commuter trains each way between Everett and Seattle. See:  http://www.soundtransit.org/riding/fac/sounder/ for schedules (scroll down on the page).

Oregon might tax motorists per mile driven, not per gallon

 

By The Associated Press

 

 

PORTLAND — If a test drive of mileage-based fees for drivers pans out during the next 10 months, it could replace Oregon's gas tax and serve as a national model for road funding in the future.

 

Oregon's 24 cents-a-gallon gas tax, which is used to fund roads, has not increased since 1993. Some at the state Department of Transportation say the money could dry up in future years as hybrids and other fuel-efficient cars become more popular. So the state is investigating other alternatives to pay for roads.

 

The mileage-fee project was designed by engineers at Oregon State University. The system works by using a Global Positioning System in a car to determine the number of miles traveled inside and outside of Oregon and at what times, which could lead to peak-driving-time fees. When the car pulls into a service station, a radio transmitter sends the data to a reader in a gas pump. The mileage fee is added to the bill, and the gas tax is subtracted.

 

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More at:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2003057679&zsection_id=2002111777&slug=oregas13m&date=20060613

Why are they choosing to disincentive people for driving more fuel efficient cars?

 

Are they going to account for vehicle weight, which causes more road wear, and leads to more public health costs through greater pollution?

 

Isn't this just the tiniest bit invasive?

 

Wouldn't it be easier to put the tax on at the time of yearly registration renewals? Presumably the odometer could be read as a part of the process, without Big Brother having to know where we are at all times.