Pierre the Great Posted December 29, 2006 Share Posted December 29, 2006 this is the reason why I'm going into urban planning instead of just politics. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/how_to_build_a_1.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
House11 Posted December 29, 2006 Share Posted December 29, 2006 Funny thing is there are cars in almost all of those pics I thought i was car-free ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted December 29, 2006 Author Share Posted December 29, 2006 obviously you didn't read the article. The town has places for cars and a car sharing program. But the majority of the town uses there feet to get around. The point is that the town encourages and promotes non car base transportation. Its set up that way. The moving from a car dependent to a car optional society is done so in steps. Europe is ahead of us because they already have the network in place (i.e. public transportation, high speed rail) LA could become a Europe in the form of transportation easily. If I was Arnold I'd put a ballot initive that would build high speed regional trains for the LA-San Diego corridor, Oakland-SF-SJ-Sacramento Corridor. Then I would greatly expand the public transit system in LA back to when it was before the interstate highway age. A regional train system for the entire LA corridor mainly linking LA to Anaheim. It can be done and it will, its just a matter of when and not if. There are regional areas that can succeed with high speed rail. North Cal South Cal Vancouver BC-Seattle-Portland Windsor-Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City The entire Atlantic Coast line could have a high speed rail system but it would be split up into corridors Washington DC-Baltimore-Phili-NY-Boston Norfolk-Richmond-DC Atlanta-Columbia-Charlotte-Greensboro-Raleigh Memphis-Nashville-Birmingham-Atlanta Orlando would be the hub for Florida Orlando-Miami Orlando-Jacksonville Orlando-Tampa-Sarasota Florida works great for high speed rail Texas works great as well in fact they were going to build a bunch of lines but Southwest Airlines sued and won so the government stopped its plan Dallas-Austin-San Antonio-Huston Dallas-Oklahoma City-Tulsa Saint Louis-KC-Denver Saint Louis-Chicago-Milwaukee Milwaukee-Chicago-Detroit Indy-Chicago Indy-Louisville-Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland Calgary-Edmonton Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted December 29, 2006 Author Share Posted December 29, 2006 Basically my vision of North America is Europe on a grander scale a train from NY-LA is stupid and a plane can fill the role. But planes are worse then cars when polluting the environment because of how high they fly in the air. Basically where I see an interstate highway I can see a super fast right of way rail system like France's TGV. It won't replace cars nothing will, yet at the moment but it will decrease people from flying all the time when flying become expensive with a carbon tax but it will be faster then riding and driving in a car. The only form of transportation that could make the plane obsolete is a Maglev train network. Problem with Maglev's is that they are very expensive to build and with the US soon to be spending a trillion dollars on the war doubt that its even on Congress and the White House's radar. The Labour party in Britain would like to build a Maglev line from Glasgow-Manchester-London line. Instead of a 6hr train ride from Glasgow to London it would be 2hrs. And from Manchester you could get to London in 50mins. 60 billion USD though it would cost to build it. But the thing does go 500kph and doesn't run on fuel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fromage Posted December 29, 2006 Share Posted December 29, 2006 (edited) mass transit sucks. in Montreal, it's ######ing horrendous. One bus every half an hour and it stops at 12am. To get downtown from my house it takes minimum 1h 45m unless I take a train(there's 1 train every hour on week days, and 1 every 4h on weekends). i could drive downtown in 25 minutes. unfortunately, i have to take a car if I want to go anywhere or get anything done... Edited December 29, 2006 by fromage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted December 29, 2006 Author Share Posted December 29, 2006 biggest complaint on mass transit is time. yes I understand that. But I love taking mass transit I don't even care how much time I'd save by taking a car. Why? Because taking transit is stress free, I don't have to drive and I'm around people. whats the fare a few dollars? lets see from my house to school is 30 miles. My car gets around 32-33 real world driving but I go 60 to 70 and not 55 so lets say 30mpg. Thats 2 gallons of gas which is at right now 2.20 thats 4.40 round trip just for the driving. Then there's the parking ticket I usually have to pay at the doctors office downtown which is around 3 dollars for an hour so thats 7.40 roughly just to go to the doctors office and theoretically if a line went out to my house (which it doesn't because 40% of the people here think it brings more black people into the white suburbs which to them means more crime apparently. But I've never seen a guy steal a TV and then use the metro to take it back into the city, but oh well whatever floats there boat I suppose) Metrolink's fee for an all day pass to anything (bus,train etc) is 4 dollars. An all day pass is cheaper then driving so taking the train is cheaper then driving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetsniper Posted December 29, 2006 Share Posted December 29, 2006 Calgary-Edmonton Don't worry, they're working on it. And I'd definitely be willing to pay the extra money if it means I'm gonna get around quicker. With the places I have to go to, I'm not spending the entire day on the bus. I can take a 5 minute drive to the local giant mall place OR I can take the bus which, for some reason, I have to take in the opposite direction for 2 hours before I get to a connecting bus that will take me to the same mall I could've taken 5 minutes to drive too. Although it's well-known Calgary's transit system is horrid. And now for their horrid system, they're rewarding us with higher fares. Thanks a lot, Bronco. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted December 29, 2006 Author Share Posted December 29, 2006 The Calgary-Edmonton was a high speed rail line idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetsniper Posted December 29, 2006 Share Posted December 29, 2006 The Calgary-Edmonton was a high speed rail line idea. Yeah, I know. They're working on it, the idea I mean. They know it's beneficial for both cities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted December 29, 2006 Author Share Posted December 29, 2006 So how long will that be? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d...ations_53kb.png Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetsniper Posted December 29, 2006 Share Posted December 29, 2006 So how long will that be? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d...ations_53kb.png Oh god, not anytime soon I'd expect, especially with the new cabinet that Stelmach selected. I mean, with Ralph I would've gone within the next 5 years but now that theres a severe lack of Calgary/Edmonton representation, it will probably take longer to come to fruition. We've got all the country yokels in the cabinet right now, I doubt they're looking to help out the big cities. Basically I don't like the new premier. At all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted December 29, 2006 Author Share Posted December 29, 2006 hmmm, funny how autocratic Alberta works. You would have thought since the new prince is from Edmonton he'd want to help Edmonton, which a high speed rail line would. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetsniper Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 hmmm, funny how autocratic Alberta works. You would have thought since the new prince is from Edmonton he'd want to help Edmonton, which a high speed rail line would. He only went to school in Edmonton, hes from a small town himself. Lamont. If you look at the cabinet, Edmonton and Calgary have 3 representatives combined, 7 if you want to count the surrounding suburbs. 2/3s of the population is represented by 3 people. It's ridiculous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fromage Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 Metrolink's fee for an all day pass to anything (bus,train etc) is 4 dollars. An all day pass is cheaper then driving so taking the train is cheaper then driving. my time is worth more than the money I'd save on fare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted December 30, 2006 Author Share Posted December 30, 2006 He only went to school in Edmonton, hes from a small town himself. Lamont. If you look at the cabinet, Edmonton and Calgary have 3 representatives combined, 7 if you want to count the surrounding suburbs. 2/3s of the population is represented by 3 people. It's ridiculous. So who would you have wanted? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetsniper Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 So who would you have wanted? I would've gone with Dinning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoRvInA Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 my time is worth more than the money I'd save on fare. YEAH Pierre how can he benefit from losing one hour on the bus? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 The bus system is TERRIBLE in Montreal unless you live in a popular area where a bus passes every 5-10 minutes. Sadly, a lot of these buses pass on average every 25 minutes and it's way more worse in Laval (island on the north of Montreal). You thought waiting 25 minutes for a bus was terrible, try waiting the minimum time of 20 minutes on busy times or better yet at night when some buses pass once and hour in Laval. Worst part of them all, the bus pass for Laval is much more expensive than the one in Montreal. Fat chance you'll convince anyone who has access to a car to take the bus. Ask Andrew (HWL Dallas GM for those who don't know), it takes him 2 hours to get to school in the morning when it should take him about 30 minutes by car. I'm sure he'd rather sleep another 90 minutes if he could rather than take the bus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetsniper Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 The bus system is TERRIBLE in Montreal unless you live in a popular area where a bus passes every 5-10 minutes. Sadly, a lot of these buses pass on average every 25 minutes and it's way more worse in Laval (island on the north of Montreal). You thought waiting 25 minutes for a bus was terrible, try waiting the minimum time of 20 minutes on busy times or better yet at night when some buses pass once and hour in Laval. Worst part of them all, the bus pass for Laval is much more expensive than the one in Montreal. Fat chance you'll convince anyone who has access to a car to take the bus. Ask Andrew (HWL Dallas GM for those who don't know), it takes him 2 hours to get to school in the morning when it should take him about 30 minutes by car. I'm sure he'd rather sleep another 90 minutes if he could rather than take the bus. Thats really similar to here. If I want to get to U of C by bus, I have to take 3 buses totalling 2 and half hours of bus time OR I can drive 15-20 minutes depending on traffic on 14th Street (its like, a minute from my house and takes me straight to the University). And thats the closest school, god forbid I attend Mount Royal which is on the entire other side of the city. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted December 30, 2006 Author Share Posted December 30, 2006 YEAH Pierre how can he benefit from losing one hour on the bus? I know people who have met their husbands and wives on the bus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fromage Posted December 31, 2006 Share Posted December 31, 2006 (edited) Montreal and Quebec in general just plain sucks... 1) Highest taxes in the nation(unarguable, we have to pay taxes/registration on BICYCLES, so much for being green). 2) Lowest wages in the nation(debatable, but probably true) 3) For the places with the highest taxes, there's the least amount of services rendered. And taxes are going up and more services are being cut. 4) The roads suck. 5) The public transit sucks. The roads are so bad, but the transit system isn't any better. Try getting anywhere after midnight on a weekend. No metro, no train, and hardly any buses. A few weeks ago, I was driving along and hit a patch of ice and slid into a curb. Okay, fine. I hit ice and it was my fault completely... except that same road is still terrible because they never, ever, salt it. And there's been more accidents there, and everywhere else because they simply don't salt enough. I get shafted by the city and the gov't every time I see my paycheque, every time I slip outside, every time I hit a huge pot hole, every time I wait for the bus that never comes. Every time I step outside my house, the city shovels shit in my face. Gosh, Montreal sucks. And Quebec as a whole isn't much better. Good thing we have an abundance of bars and a good hockey team to keep us away from the real problems. Edited December 31, 2006 by fromage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirty Harry Posted January 27, 2007 Share Posted January 27, 2007 (edited) yeah but try not to think about how much tax you're paying for on that whiskey. Honestly, one of my goals in life is to be really good at dodging taxes. Edited January 27, 2007 by Dirty Harry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shortcat1 Posted January 28, 2007 Share Posted January 28, 2007 it'd be good to see communities be more car-free but they're not really built for it... people have to go from all over the place to all ove the place for work or whatever - too much dispersal of possible destinations... on top of that, where will the will come to pay up front for the mass transit investment, never mind the cost of running it? GO :hlogo: GO! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toren Posted February 4, 2007 Share Posted February 4, 2007 Hey, Pierre. Stop putting me out of a job. If people stop designing cars, I'm coming for you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted February 4, 2007 Author Share Posted February 4, 2007 Hey, Pierre. Stop putting me out of a job. If people stop designing cars, I'm coming for you! I see you live in Victoria, it desperately needs an LRT system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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