Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"aemeijers" wrote in message
About the only 'mass transit' you can do in a hurry is buses, either
conventional ones or privately run gypsy/jitney ones. Unlike Europe or the
old dense urban areas of east coast, most of US is not mass-transit
friendly. Too spread out, and peoples schedules vary too much. Around
here, they cut the bus routes back to the old part of the city.

Schedules are not a problem. Years ago companies and workers adapted to
available transportation or they walked because they lived near the mill
That is probably the only easy part to overcome. The automobile allowed
us to use many other options. Used to be, people did not complain about
taking two busses and a trolley to get to work. Now we complain if our
parking spot is more than 25' from the door. If a train dropped 100 people
off at the entrance to an industrial park, chances are they'd still have to
travel a quarter mile to a mile to their workplace along roads with no
sidewalks.

The last time I took public transportation to work was in the 1960's and
where I park at work is only 10' from the door.



I'm not sure, but I think we are agreeing with each other. Until July
05, I lived in the apartments about a mile west of here, which was the
turnaround point for the end of that particular bus route (before it was
cancelled.) So, in theory, I could have ridden the bus to work, assuming
I got my lazy ass out of bed in time. However, it was a 20 minute
meandering ride from their to the central bus stop downtown, and then a
20 minute wait for a transfer for the bus that stopped in front of my
office. Call it 50 minutes to an hour, minimum, twice a day.

I'm 51 years old. The insurance company tables say I have maybe 35 years
left, if I'm lucky. I can DRIVE to work in 10-12 minutes. Am I going to
use up 2 hours sitting on a bus every day? Would you? Would anyone
rational, unless they were flat broke and had no other choice? If my
employers and the city had come up with a express shuttle for the
federal installation where I work, so no transfer was involved and it
only took, say, 20 minutes twice a day, the bus would suddenly look a
whole lot more interesting. The apartments where I lived could have
filled half a bus with just the federal employees that lived there. Add
in the other apartments up and down the main drag on this side of town,
it could have worked out. The main drags in the other 3 compass
directions would have similar numbers- hit the big apartment complexes,
and maybe certain subdivisions where you know the employees live.

Hey, I LIKE buses. I rode them a lot in college. But they were cheap,
and went directly from where I slept, to where I needed to be, and there
was one every 15 minutes.

--
aem sends...