No, Mister Hannity, that is a bad idea.

@Josef Think that's bad? Check out the US Amtrak system that has to share rail lines with freight transport resulting in bottleneck zones with speed. And a lack of funding for high-speed rail. When the oil peak hits in I doubt the US will last long as a unified political system (with the 'oil peak = barely any planes up = less transport and movement = provincialism increases')

edited 16th Jan '11 4:14:22 PM by BalloonFleet

@Barkey

Welcome to the wonderful world of British fuel taxation. The tabloid press have taken to accusing the government of a 'war on motorists' in recent years; high fuel prices, higher road tax, omnipresent automated speed cameras and the M4 bus lane have led to a certain amount of discontent.

Wow, that really sucks. My American bias makes me just want to shiver and go "Ewww, icky!"

At least they have the actual possibility of just taking a bus in safety, or walk wherever they want.

I cant stand how car orientated the USA is.

For people like me who hate driving, it almost makes me feel like moving out.

Wow, that really sucks. My American bias makes me just want to shiver and go "Ewww, icky!"

My "American bias" doesn't care and says 'meh not like they cant take the tube anyway' - though im not a fan of the 'having to pay to drive in crowded sections of the city at certain times of the day'.

I cant stand how car orientated the USA is. For people like me who hate driving, it almost makes me feel like moving out.

Just move to a decent-size city, and hope their government isnt shafting their transport systems.

Given that I'm based in Plymouth, 250 miles away, the tube is not really a possibility.

I'm in the Los Angeles area, everything is extremely spaced out and we can't build tube systems here, too many earthquakes.

The bus also just isn't very feasible due to the spread-out-ness of where I live. I'd end up spending three times as much time letting the bus go through tons of stops on the way to where I want to go, and having it take the long way around. We're very spread out because of how we have to build our structures, usually never higher than 3 stories, so we can't "build up" and compact everything the way places like NYC do.

When the oil peak hits in I doubt the US will last long as a unified political system

We went through being without oil as a continent-sized nation before, we can do it again. You're acting like we're a Middle Eastern petro-economy and modern business is investing into research on nuclear fusion.

Also, peak oil is kinda a bit of an urban legend if not outright myth. People have been scaremongering about "peak oil" for 30 years now and we've yet to come across it. Though to be fair with the way Obama disastrously handled the Deepwater Horizon affair, "peak oil" as a political concept is much more viable than "peak oil" the phenomena where we cannot find any more oil whatsoever.

^^ Then you have the fact that modern L.A. was built with car travel in mind.

Things are spread out here in the DC suburbs as well (comparisons to LA have been max before), and the public transit system outside DC proper and Arlington County, VA is really gearedctoward getting people from the suburbs to the city center, not suburb to suburb (something that's become a lot more important since the late 1960s with the rise of places like Tysons Corner, Bethesda, and the Dulles and I-270 corridors). The roads leading out that way are a good 20 years behind the times, and people are still arguing about building some sort of loop route between all these places.

I love taking the bus, but I also hedged my bets and bought a Prius while pricee were low, just in case. Also, getting up at 5:30 to be able to catch the most convenient bus makes me too tired to work...

@Barkey

Tokyo does it (assuming "tube" means "metro"). Is LA worse than Tokyo on earthquakes?

^^ I'd take the bus some days to go places......except I live 26 miles from the city of Pueblo. It would take me a little under a day at my fastest walking pace to walk there. I could run there in a little over 3 hours and by bicycle it would take me 45 mins to an hour minimum. Public transportation really doesn't exist at all outside the cities. The train line nearest me runs through the middle of nowhere (as in the middle of canyonlands) and is pretty much exclusively freight.

So travel by car especially during college (including the trip cross town it was 32 miles or roughly 50 km one way) is a necessity for me.

^ Different mechanism. Earthquakes in LA are lateral strike slip faulting. Literally half the city is moving to the northwest.

edited 16th Jan '11 4:46:42 PM by MajorTom

@Barkey

Tokyo does it (assuming "tube" means "metro"). Is LA worse than Tokyo on earthquakes?

I believe so. The only projects like that which we have are made massively expensive due to earthquake proofing. There are some tall buildings in Los Angeles, but they cost vast amounts of money to build.

Tokyo does it (assuming "tube" means "metro"). Is LA worse than Tokyo on earthquakes?

No it is not, people HAVE compared LA and Tokyo as they are built on large plains by oceans in warm climates in seismically active regions and pointed out the opposite densities and population levels

Given that I'm based in Plymouth, 250 miles away, the tube is not really a possibility.

AFAIK there is regional british rail lines and whatnot right?

We're very spread out because of how we have to build our structures, usually never higher than 3 stories, so we can't "build up" and compact everything the way places like NYC do

There's the fact that LA was built as an aggolermation of smaller towns and outposts that were originally linked by railroad lines. The city from the beginning wasn't designed as affectively, and its' growth and sprawl was accelerated by buses and cars (Sprawl began in the 1910s-1920s for LA)

We went through being without oil as a continent-sized nation before, we can do it again. You're acting like we're a Middle Eastern petro-economy and modern business is investing into research on nuclear fusion.

But the giant gap that would generate would be a problem with you know, resetting things and getting it reoganized

Also, peak oil is kinda a bit of an urban legend if not outright myth. People have been scaremongering about "peak oil" for 30 years now and we've yet to come across it. Though to be fair with the way Obama disastrously handled the Deepwater Horizon affair, "peak oil" as a political concept is much more viable than "peak oil" the phenomena where we cannot find any more oil whatsoever.

Hubbert's theory applies only to US oil reserves, and they peaked around the same time Hubbert predicted. the US stayed up because Southwest Asian oil supplanted native US supplies in the 1970s. The embargo brought that to a forefront. now southwest asian oil supplies are dwindling and peaking now with the saudis injecting seawater to keep a decent rate.

edited 16th Jan '11 4:52:34 PM by BalloonFleet

The point is that it would cost shitloads of initial investment for something that is way less convenient, but pollutes less. Thus it isn't a popular initiative here.

I'm used to leaving when I want, to go straight to where I want, and come back in the same fashion. Having always lived this way, I would never want to use public transportation unless I had no alternative. Takes more time, inconveniences me more, etc.

The point is that it would cost shitloads of initial investment for something that is way less convenient, but pollutes less. Thus it isn't a popular initiative here.

More accurately it isn't 'profitable' as how people said it. Same thing really

@Balloon Fleet (#39)

Yeah, I'm just being facetious. To be honest, I was put off public transport for a long time when I didn't have a car as a junior officer, and had to drag all my shit across the country by train on a regular basis like an eastern European refugee fleeing the Red Army.

edited 16th Jan '11 5:05:16 PM by casoid

@Barkey: We do have a tube system. Blue and Red Lines.

Also, peak oil is kinda a bit of an urban legend if not outright myth. People have been scaremongering about "peak oil" for 30 years now and we've yet to come across it. Though to be fair with the way Obama disastrously handled the Deepwater Horizon affair, "peak oil" as a political concept is much more viable than "peak oil" the phenomena where we cannot find any more oil whatsoever.

Oil production isn't going to suddenly stop some day, but it is getting gradually more and more expensive. Obviously, the big issue is how fast prices will increase in the future compared to how fast the economy can adjust to other energy sources.

^ Oil isn't getting more expensive owing to supply shortages. Speculators largely fuel oil's swings for gain or loss in value.

Yeah I know, the drawback of putting the world's most useful fuel resource on the commodities markets.

(On the flipside, the commodities markets keeps control of oil out of the hands of governments.)

Secondly, you have an increase in demand. China is about to pass our rate of oil consumption. (Just like they've passed our everything pollution-wise) They've become a major consumer of petroleum and petroleum products. (And a major thorn in the side of world governments everywhere when dealing with things like Iran's nuclear aims.)

@Barkey: We do have a tube system. Blue and Red Lines.

That's true, but they aren't the most convenient.

^^ I didn't realize that any free market conservatives™ actually believed that nonsense about commodity volatility being the fault of "speculators". I thought it was confined to populists.

Anyway, the main driver of commodity prices is supply and demand, and more specifically, China.

edited 17th Jan '11 9:18:28 PM by storyyeller

I'm used to leaving when I want, to go straight to where I want, and come back in the same fashion. Having always lived this way, I would never want to use public transportation unless I had no alternative. Takes more time, inconveniences me more, etc.

And, ironically enough, is more expensive on most trips. God, I hate LA.

^^ Speculators do control the market. It's the reason why oil hit $147 per barrel in August 2008. There were no supply shortages, no supply disruptions, hell even hurricane season that year was abnormally pathetic  ^*

Right now they are doing the same thing using China's increased demand and the Deepwater spill and the politics surrounding it as cover.

Tom: It was even worse for my family when we lived in the boondocks from 1987-1992. Pretty much everything of import was in Charlottesville, which was 30 miles one-way; the spot on the road we lived in had one supermarket and one convenience store, and Mom hated shopping at the grocery stroe because it was "high" compared to Food Lion.

Even then, we ended up going out even further (Staunton, Richmond, Farmville) on occasion because Mom had discovered something called "Wal-Mart", and there wasn't one in Charlottesville until after we moved. That and me and my next-younger brother loved road trips.