Image by Getty Images via DaylifeFor those traveling on I-15 last night, it was a nightmare. A trucked rolled over in Davis County snarling traffic for miles.I-15 crash snarls evening commute
Apparently many people seeing how bad the tie ups were on I-15 decided to take Front Runner home instead. While the trains may have been overcrowded because of this, at least they didn't have to deal with the traffic tie ups and got home faster.
Here is a nice editorial coming from Utah County about taking the bus.
IN OUR VIEW: The allure of the bus
Next up is an article about walkable communities and how they can keep the pounds off. Imagine that, if the neighborhood is walkable it means that people are more likely to walk and it keeps the weight off. What a concept is that?
Walkable Neighborhoods Keep the Pounds Off
On that note Walk Score has come out with a new walk score calculator plus showing the most walkable cities which does not have Salt Lake City in the top 30. The walk score is still of questionable use since it does not have the abilities to know about sidewalks. After all, my in-laws area shows a higher walking score than our apartment despite the fact that it is not safe to walk from my in-laws home to anywhere.
Transit ridership is surging because of high gas prices so what is President Bush's answer to the situation? His Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters just reveled a plan to transfer funds from transit to highways. Doesn't that make sense?
As Highway Trust Fund Shrinks, Bush Administration Wants to Rob Transit
Funding for transit should be increased now, not taken away to fund more highways.
5 comments:
I don't think that people walk because they live in a walkable neighborhood. They move to the walkable neighborhood because they want to walk/bike/use public transit. I believe that the studies conclusion is wrong. Overweight people don't move to a walkable area and decide to walk and get in shape. People move to areas that help support their life style.
How can you call it robbing transit when these funds came from the gas tax in the first place?
These funds were "robbed" from roads. I guess you could call it robbing it back.
Well I guess we can call it making up for how much the streetcar companies subsidized the highway programs until it killed them through the governments social engineering.
I was just looking at riding front runner to work each day. I was shocked to find out that I would only save $40.00/month in fuel costs. I thought the savings would be more significant.
Mass transit cannot succeed at current front runner prices. I disagree that more tax dollar money should be invested into mass transit.
There are four main reasons why people use mass transit. 1)cannot drive, 2)faster than driving, 3)cheeper than driving and 4) to preserve the environment.
In today's society people are more concerned with making it to work on time than preserving the environment. The average person can drive, and also by driving to work they can get there faster than mass transit. The only reason left for using mass transit is to save money. If this last requirement is not met then there is no reason for the average person to use mass transit.
While I am sure that front runner needs to charge these prices in hopes of breaking even. They should however look into lowering their prices and banking on more people taking advantage of such a valuable resource. By lowering prices more people would ride front runner and therefore bring in more revenue. Thus front runner would actually be worth having in place of more roads.
First of all Chad, your going to complain about saving $40.00 a month? That is pretty significant savings for most.
Second Mass Transit can succeed at today's Front Runner prices. If you look at the cost of Metrolink in Los Angeles it is higher than Front Runner and is at capacity.
You forget the other reasons for people ride transit: More relaxing that dealing with idiots on the road, less stress, etc.
The biggest problem facing transit is 70 years of social engineering promoting the automobile, areas that are not transit friendly, and everything designed for the automobile. Things are starting to change.
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