![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I received an anonymous comment on my last entry, and I admit it rankled a lot. I’m going to refute the comments here, instead of just as a comment, because… I want to. The original comment is in bold.
First off, another disclaimer. I don’t know if everyone knows this, but I’m an engineer. Though I mostly work on residential roads and storm sewers, I have a fair working knowledge of transportation systems. I also like to think I’m not an idiot, and that all the other engineers in the area are also not idiots, and we’re not blindly overlooking the really obvious solution – just do what the other cities do! DUH!
It doesn’t work that way. All cities are different, all areas are different, hence my original disclaimer. Plus, the original question posed had nothing to do with public transport (which is why it was less addressed in my post) and everything to do with the fuel efficiency of our cars. I did toss in the bit about us being a sprawling metro to identify the differences of the types of cities within the US to highlight how we are not a homogenous place. The US has large cities, small cities, tightly packed cities, sprawling cities, small towns, farms… so the original question was rather broad and vague and I was trying to highlight that, and part of that is shown by the struggles of public transport in places like this (where it doesn’t work, believe me, it’s not something that hasn’t been discussed) and the triumph of public transport in places like DC (where it works very well).
To your discussion about lemon trees, all I have to say is you really have no right to complain about how much cats shed: or, how to stay on-topic.
Have to comment - noone here can complain about fuel until it's ten dollars a gallon.
Thank you for giving us your permission to complain once gas reaches $10/gallon, good to know I have that right once it gets to exactly that. However, never once in my post did I complain about the cost of gas, this question came from someone outside the US as a question of fuel efficiency. The cost of gas was only used to determine the economics of hybrid cars – you can’t really tell if it’s an economically sound decision without that. I don’t know what got your feathers all a-ruffled about that, but it was definitely misplaced.
A damp cloth on your neck cools you in the desert, it should totally work to cool you off in the humid south! Or: why one thing being similar does not mean everything is exactly the same. Not, thankfully, a discussion on heat and humidity, which has been done to death.
And even spread out cities can have functional sustainable public transport, because Perth, Australia does.
As for Perth – you’re telling me that the public transport system works for everyone? That I could, in a timely manner, get from any one address in the city to another, in a way that is either quicker or cheaper than driving? If so, that’s wonderful! There are cities in the US like that (Chicago, DC, New York, LA) and I’ve used the Metro in DC and love it. However, I think there’s something about Kansas City in particular, as a sprawling metro area that makes it a unique challenge. It’s not a city. It’s 25 cities, in 3 counties, in 2 states. I, personally, drive through three different cities every day – the one I live in, the one I work in, and the one in-between. If I took the highway I’d actually clip a fourth city. Many people I know live in one state and work in the other. This is a situation not overly understandable to people outside the US, who may not know the intricacies of working with so many levels of government, or indeed even how our various governmental agencies work together, and is certainly very different than one city putting together a working plan (for instance, the bus system in KCMO is more developed and more widely used, but still was unworkable for me when I lived and worked in KCMO as it took longer, cost more, and required a 1-mile walk – which wasn’t so much a problem unless it was raining, snowing, hailing, tornadic, or over 100 degrees).
Also, we do not have a central business district. People do not, as they do in DC, commute in to one area. That makes public transport a breeze! Then you just have a hub with spokes and everyone comes in in the morning, and goes out in the evening. That system works very well for many cities.
Yes, there is downtown Kansas City, Missouri. I personally don’t know anyone who works there, but there are a lot of people who do and many of them do take the bus (because there are some more high-speed direct routes on the freeway, and parking downtown is the one place in the area it costs money). However, that’s the only place buses go, so for me to get from the southwest side to the southeast side of the county, I have to go all the way downtown (hence the three-hour bus ride). Okay, so add a ring route. At what level? I work 4 miles north of where I live. A level ‘ring’ out from the city center would still mean I’d have to take a spoke in at some point. Now you’ve included two transfers – one to get on the spoke, and another to get on the second ring. Each bus ride costs more time and more money, making it less economically feasible for me to ride the bus. If it doesn’t make time or money sense, people will not ride the bus, and you will not have a sustainable bus system.
It’s an unfortunately circular argument: We don’t have a good public transport system because at this time, it doesn’t make sense for people to even want to use one, and if people don’t use it, it’s not economically feasible to have one. And until such a time it becomes cheaper or easier to do so, people aren’t going to. Please do not make the logical fallacy that if something works for one place, it will work for every place even vaguely similar (yes, they are both low-density sprawling area, but demographics, economics, and everything else about them might be different). Do you think all the engineers and politicians in the area are so stupid they haven’t looked at options and tried to make them work? Okay, maybe the politicians, but the engineers, at least, know what they’re talking about. Until you’ve been here, seen how the city works and moves, please don’t tell us what you think would work here when you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Planes, trains, and automobiles! A discussion topic not as out of left field as is appears, but still not really a good point when it comes right down to it.
Y'all should use trains instead of semis and planes.
Then we could also restrict semis apart from specific roads, like most normal cities elsewhere in the world. Use smaller trucks from distribution centres. That for one would make me less worried on the road, your normal Ford 150 doesn't worry me so much as the semis.
We do use trains. Trust me, we hear them every night. They are used to ship stuff all over the US… where there are train tracks. However, there are places that laying tracks is not really feasible from an engineering standpoint, and there are a limit to how many tracks you can put down until the country is nothing but train tracks.
Semis are restricted from some roads (at least here – again, laws vary from city to city, county to county, state to state, once again making my point that you can rarely say ‘the US’ and really mean all of it), though even if they were further restricted to major highways, that still does not change my point about Kansas City, since the roads a lot of commuters use (where they might feel unsafe in a Smart Car) are the major highways that go through town. If you restrict semis from those roads, they don’t really have any way to get through town… except on rural roads or city streets. Smaller trucks and distribution centers are used once inside the city, but again, things still need to get through the city, even if it’s just to come into the city to a distribution center.
Diesel, and no, not Vin. Though him and The Rock are staring in a car movie together and I’m not sure I’m going to survive that… I… wait, I’ve forgotten my point…
Diesel is cheaper than petrol in Australia and I believe Europe - why is it more expensive here?
Why is diesel more here? No idea. Probably because it’s not as readily available. And why that is I don’t know, and said as much in the original post. We used to have diesel cars, not so much anymore. No one sees that as more of a solution than hybrids, though, so I doubt it will make a comeback.
My friend Darren is also allergic to citrus, but he can totally eat Tangelos, so I don’t see why Kent can’t eat Limes! Or, logical fallacy at its finest.
Oh yea and the only people I know who drove an original mini (at least four people) were all upwards of 6'6"...
I don't know if cars are designed differently here but those/most models of cars are perfectly comfortable for everyone I know of that height :s
We only got the ‘official’ Mini here a few years ago, I have no experience with that particular make/model, which is why it wasn’t one that was listed in my post as a ‘small’ car (we did own an Elantra, which is a deceptively roomy ‘small’ car). The cars that were listed, however, are cars I went shopping for with my husband, who, as mentioned, is 6’4” and found them cramped and uncomfortable. I’m happy there’s a car your tall friends are comfortable in, that does not invalidate my point that many small cars here are uncomfortable for larger people. ESPECIALLY if you have more than 2 people, and expect a 6’ tall person to sit in the back seat (and yes, this happens every time we go somewhere with another couple who are friends of ours, she’s 5’11” and he’s 6’2”). I guess we could take two smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, but I’m not sure the math works out that way, either.
My favorite part of this: “I don't know if cars are designed differently here” and “but those/most models of cars are perfectly comfortable for everyone I know of that height”. Because most cars in the US are exactly the same as cars elsewhere. Which is why I can get a 2-door Fiesta hatchback. Oh, wait…
First off, another disclaimer. I don’t know if everyone knows this, but I’m an engineer. Though I mostly work on residential roads and storm sewers, I have a fair working knowledge of transportation systems. I also like to think I’m not an idiot, and that all the other engineers in the area are also not idiots, and we’re not blindly overlooking the really obvious solution – just do what the other cities do! DUH!
It doesn’t work that way. All cities are different, all areas are different, hence my original disclaimer. Plus, the original question posed had nothing to do with public transport (which is why it was less addressed in my post) and everything to do with the fuel efficiency of our cars. I did toss in the bit about us being a sprawling metro to identify the differences of the types of cities within the US to highlight how we are not a homogenous place. The US has large cities, small cities, tightly packed cities, sprawling cities, small towns, farms… so the original question was rather broad and vague and I was trying to highlight that, and part of that is shown by the struggles of public transport in places like this (where it doesn’t work, believe me, it’s not something that hasn’t been discussed) and the triumph of public transport in places like DC (where it works very well).
To your discussion about lemon trees, all I have to say is you really have no right to complain about how much cats shed: or, how to stay on-topic.
Have to comment - noone here can complain about fuel until it's ten dollars a gallon.
Thank you for giving us your permission to complain once gas reaches $10/gallon, good to know I have that right once it gets to exactly that. However, never once in my post did I complain about the cost of gas, this question came from someone outside the US as a question of fuel efficiency. The cost of gas was only used to determine the economics of hybrid cars – you can’t really tell if it’s an economically sound decision without that. I don’t know what got your feathers all a-ruffled about that, but it was definitely misplaced.
A damp cloth on your neck cools you in the desert, it should totally work to cool you off in the humid south! Or: why one thing being similar does not mean everything is exactly the same. Not, thankfully, a discussion on heat and humidity, which has been done to death.
And even spread out cities can have functional sustainable public transport, because Perth, Australia does.
As for Perth – you’re telling me that the public transport system works for everyone? That I could, in a timely manner, get from any one address in the city to another, in a way that is either quicker or cheaper than driving? If so, that’s wonderful! There are cities in the US like that (Chicago, DC, New York, LA) and I’ve used the Metro in DC and love it. However, I think there’s something about Kansas City in particular, as a sprawling metro area that makes it a unique challenge. It’s not a city. It’s 25 cities, in 3 counties, in 2 states. I, personally, drive through three different cities every day – the one I live in, the one I work in, and the one in-between. If I took the highway I’d actually clip a fourth city. Many people I know live in one state and work in the other. This is a situation not overly understandable to people outside the US, who may not know the intricacies of working with so many levels of government, or indeed even how our various governmental agencies work together, and is certainly very different than one city putting together a working plan (for instance, the bus system in KCMO is more developed and more widely used, but still was unworkable for me when I lived and worked in KCMO as it took longer, cost more, and required a 1-mile walk – which wasn’t so much a problem unless it was raining, snowing, hailing, tornadic, or over 100 degrees).
Also, we do not have a central business district. People do not, as they do in DC, commute in to one area. That makes public transport a breeze! Then you just have a hub with spokes and everyone comes in in the morning, and goes out in the evening. That system works very well for many cities.
Yes, there is downtown Kansas City, Missouri. I personally don’t know anyone who works there, but there are a lot of people who do and many of them do take the bus (because there are some more high-speed direct routes on the freeway, and parking downtown is the one place in the area it costs money). However, that’s the only place buses go, so for me to get from the southwest side to the southeast side of the county, I have to go all the way downtown (hence the three-hour bus ride). Okay, so add a ring route. At what level? I work 4 miles north of where I live. A level ‘ring’ out from the city center would still mean I’d have to take a spoke in at some point. Now you’ve included two transfers – one to get on the spoke, and another to get on the second ring. Each bus ride costs more time and more money, making it less economically feasible for me to ride the bus. If it doesn’t make time or money sense, people will not ride the bus, and you will not have a sustainable bus system.
It’s an unfortunately circular argument: We don’t have a good public transport system because at this time, it doesn’t make sense for people to even want to use one, and if people don’t use it, it’s not economically feasible to have one. And until such a time it becomes cheaper or easier to do so, people aren’t going to. Please do not make the logical fallacy that if something works for one place, it will work for every place even vaguely similar (yes, they are both low-density sprawling area, but demographics, economics, and everything else about them might be different). Do you think all the engineers and politicians in the area are so stupid they haven’t looked at options and tried to make them work? Okay, maybe the politicians, but the engineers, at least, know what they’re talking about. Until you’ve been here, seen how the city works and moves, please don’t tell us what you think would work here when you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Planes, trains, and automobiles! A discussion topic not as out of left field as is appears, but still not really a good point when it comes right down to it.
Y'all should use trains instead of semis and planes.
Then we could also restrict semis apart from specific roads, like most normal cities elsewhere in the world. Use smaller trucks from distribution centres. That for one would make me less worried on the road, your normal Ford 150 doesn't worry me so much as the semis.
We do use trains. Trust me, we hear them every night. They are used to ship stuff all over the US… where there are train tracks. However, there are places that laying tracks is not really feasible from an engineering standpoint, and there are a limit to how many tracks you can put down until the country is nothing but train tracks.
Semis are restricted from some roads (at least here – again, laws vary from city to city, county to county, state to state, once again making my point that you can rarely say ‘the US’ and really mean all of it), though even if they were further restricted to major highways, that still does not change my point about Kansas City, since the roads a lot of commuters use (where they might feel unsafe in a Smart Car) are the major highways that go through town. If you restrict semis from those roads, they don’t really have any way to get through town… except on rural roads or city streets. Smaller trucks and distribution centers are used once inside the city, but again, things still need to get through the city, even if it’s just to come into the city to a distribution center.
Diesel is cheaper than petrol in Australia and I believe Europe - why is it more expensive here?
Why is diesel more here? No idea. Probably because it’s not as readily available. And why that is I don’t know, and said as much in the original post. We used to have diesel cars, not so much anymore. No one sees that as more of a solution than hybrids, though, so I doubt it will make a comeback.
My friend Darren is also allergic to citrus, but he can totally eat Tangelos, so I don’t see why Kent can’t eat Limes! Or, logical fallacy at its finest.
Oh yea and the only people I know who drove an original mini (at least four people) were all upwards of 6'6"...
I don't know if cars are designed differently here but those/most models of cars are perfectly comfortable for everyone I know of that height :s
We only got the ‘official’ Mini here a few years ago, I have no experience with that particular make/model, which is why it wasn’t one that was listed in my post as a ‘small’ car (we did own an Elantra, which is a deceptively roomy ‘small’ car). The cars that were listed, however, are cars I went shopping for with my husband, who, as mentioned, is 6’4” and found them cramped and uncomfortable. I’m happy there’s a car your tall friends are comfortable in, that does not invalidate my point that many small cars here are uncomfortable for larger people. ESPECIALLY if you have more than 2 people, and expect a 6’ tall person to sit in the back seat (and yes, this happens every time we go somewhere with another couple who are friends of ours, she’s 5’11” and he’s 6’2”). I guess we could take two smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, but I’m not sure the math works out that way, either.
My favorite part of this: “I don't know if cars are designed differently here” and “but those/most models of cars are perfectly comfortable for everyone I know of that height”. Because most cars in the US are exactly the same as cars elsewhere. Which is why I can get a 2-door Fiesta hatchback. Oh, wait…
no subject
Thank you.
no subject