Similarily, my wife reciently was forced to go to training in San Diego (we live in LA). The amtrack train only stopped near the place of training at 7am or 9:20am. My wife had the choice of being an hour and half earily or an hour late… neither being realistic. She would also have to wait a full hour after getting off work to take the train back. Instead she drives 4 hours a day (150 mi).

I want to take the metro to work as well.. it’s about 22mi each way. I would have to take 1 bus with 2 transfers each way, and spend aprox 3 hours a day on the bus (not counting wait times). instead, I drive about 2 hours a day (the 91 freeway is packed each way).

Before people think that the problem is the commuter who just doesn’t know of the “wonderful” public transportation system this country has, they should be first forced to use it…

We need a game changing investment in public transportation…. something along the lines of what our European and Canadian peers have. Even Mexico seems to have a more effective public transportation system.

Transit? Our system is designed to get the working class to and from the domestic jobs, in the upper class neighborhoods, or downtown. If I use Mass Transit in Jacksonville, (or perhaps your city), I sit in the blazing sun waiting for a bus that runs on 45 minute headways. Time-keeping? Forget it. Consumer friendly? Well, it’s a moving bus bench, that’s about the best I can offer.

So why is Joe-Passenger waiting in the blazing sun? Why isn’t the bus equiped with a couple of tables for the quality passenger, or business customer we all claim to be fishing for? Why can’t I serve myself a nice cup of coffee onboard? Does your bus have TV? radio? headphones? probably not, but my car does. Air-conditioned C-Store with restrooms? Air Conditioned bus stop with restrooms? Think about it. We need to think outside of our comfort zone and be more then the automobile. It might take some creative thinking, but then isn’t that what we get paid for?

Robert Mann
lightrailjacksonville

Incrementally increasing transit service, at the present pace, is a losing proposition. This is largely because the distance, capitalwise, from where we are -to where we must be, to have sufficient schedule options to reach the “tipping point”. Or call it the “critical mass”, whereby public transportation meets expectations, as well as becomes a cultural “norm”. We are in more trouble than we know.

The fading of public transit routes & options of the 1940’s & 1950’s took place without undue public policy anti transit bias- rather- the situation was really moreso robust pro-car and bus and truck methodology. The rails and many bus systems faded line by line, disappeared locale by locale. Stronger numbers kept some rail commuters going, while the freight mains consolidated, peeling off the branches to smaller operators where there was (and still is) enough revenue to thrive under the radar. Bus rapid transit emerges, but will struggle with Peaking Oil soon.

The reverse of the 1950-s scenario will be required to emplace crucial public access transportation infrastructure- more a re-direction of capital to transit than restrictions on the automobile. To refine that statement, as cheap fuel encouraged the roadgang over the last fifty years, constantly increasing cost of motor fuel will encourage alternative transportation over the next fifty years. Redirection of capital must come with entrepeneurs who smell the ramifications of Peaking Oil and will spearhead the move away from the motormania now gripping our foreigh policy imperatives.

One fears the chaos that will surely be our national lot when the gasoline pumps aren’t ready for us when we show up! The busy commuter rail or bus administrator should have a circumspect assistant who will research “Cantarell” & North Sea oilfield depletion, and look at the site: “theoildrum” and get savvy enough to leave some info for the boss now & then. Elected leaders and local/state planners must be found with the nerve & skill to spread the alarm; hello?

Of course there are readers who are not connected to the tranport industry. No excuse. You must think the groceries will arrive and the toilet paper and the garbage will be picked up without a hitch in a diesel fuel shortage. Think some more- The feds will, when they have no choice, allocate diesel from trucking to agriculture in whatever measure to protect that most critical sector. Must we wait for these Federal johnny-come-latelys before local and State responsibles get going?

There is substantiation for these stark comments, (starker still), in the August 10 US News back page- “The Energy Emergency”. That’s the issue with the boy standing on the doctor’s weighing scale. We too, are going to be measured, and found wanting. Fred? Hillary? Barack? Governator? You other candidates (staffers) too, looking for the plank to grab the imagination…. May I suggest tackling Peaking Oil and addressing James Howard Kunstler’s LONG EMERGENCY?