Things I learned from Craig

The problems with most transit

It doesn't begin to pay its own way.
It doesn't serve serve the low income near as well as buying them a cheap auto, and it's more expensive.
It doesn't serve the physically impaired near as well as demand response.
"Transportation choice" zealots hold the above two groups as human hostages. If you try to cut transit, they see that these groups are promptly and prominently cut.
Transit doesn't work well in the suburbs and other low population density places
The average person will only walk a quarter mile to a transit stop.
They won't walk even that far in bad weather.
Women with childcare responsibilities have a harder time using transit.
Women with childcare and household responsibilities have an even harder time using transit.
If you don't work the day shift it's really hard to use transit.
Even if you can use transit, it'll generally take you a lot longer to get where you are going than if you drive.
But most of all I learned that:

Transit and HOV lanes are NEVER going to solve our congestion problems.

And what I've ultimately decided is, zowie's right:

Screw transit! Build roads!:

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), May 04, 2000

Answers

You left out the part about people not riding transit if they aren't protected from the wierdos that ride it:

Bus Passengers Tell of Horror By JOJI SAKURAI Associated Press Writer HIGASHI HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP)  For 15 hours, the passengers were holed up inside the hijacked bus while their 17-year-old captor paced up and down the aisle, slashed at peoples' throats with his long knife, laughed and took photographs of his victims. One hostage died and several were seriously injured before the ordeal ended today in a pre-dawn police raid at a highway rest stop in southwestern Japan. Several of those rescued jumped out of the bus, some falling into the arms of police officers. Passengers who talked to police and doctors after their release told a bizarre tale of the teen, who had suddenly stood up, begun screaming ``Shut up!,'' slashed several people and held his 16-inch knife to the neck of a 6-year-old girl. After a 190-mile chase and hours of negotiations, police charged into the bus through billowing smoke from a chemical they had released to slow down the suspect. The rescuers entered through a window and an emergency exit and arrested the teen. The nine remaining passengers, the bus driver and the suspect were unharmed. One officer was cut in the leg by broken glass. Japan was riveted by the hijacking and chase, shown live on TV from cameras on the ground and in helicopters. Many people were troubled by the age of the suspect in a country that has long enjoyed low crime rates, but which has recently seen them rising among youths and producing several grisly crimes. About 20 people were aboard the bus when it was seized Wednesday on Sanyo Expressway in Fukuoka prefecture, 560 miles southwest of Tokyo. The teen freed four men after stopping the bus as it passed through a tunnel on the Sanyo Expressway, said a Hiroshima prefectural police official who spoke on condition of anonymity Three women passengers were freed at a parking lot after being stabbed in the neck. One of them  68-year-old Tatsuko Tsukamoto  died at a hospital, police said. Yoshikazu Ikuta, a doctor who treated four of the rescued passengers at Hiroshima University Hospital, said none suffered physical injuries but all were traumatized. Michiko Tashiro said the teen took photographs of the people he cut and sometimes laughed, Ikuta said. When he stabbed, he aimed for the neck, Ikuta quoted the patients as saying. When a passenger tried to escape, he attacked another passenger to take out his anger. Officials said the 6-year-old girl, Yuuki Ishibashi, had been traveling alone on the bus to visit her grandparents. Kiyohiko Dohi, director of Hiroshima Prefectural Hospital, said the girl repeatedly asked if the people who were injured were OK. Doctors said she appeared to be in shock but seemed relieved to see her parents and is expected to recover. A hospital official said Yuuki and her parents were receiving counseling. The teen, whose name was withheld because of his age, was arrested on charges of taking hostages and carrying an illegal weapon, police said. If convicted, the maximum penalty for killing a hostage is the death penalty. Police official Joji Fujiha said the teen, who was being held at a nearby police station, acknowledged that he carried out the hijacking but would not disclose his motive. A photo shot through the front window of the bus showed a pudgy, bespectacled youngster with a pageboy hairstyle, sitting next to a girl behind the driver. The suspect had been hospitalized at the National Sanitorium in Saga prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu where the hijacking began, a hospital official said, speaking on condition anonymity. The teen had been allowed to leave the mental institution to visit home this week, national broadcaster NHK said. The hospital spokesman and officials at three prefectural police departments refused to confirm the report. Kyodo News agency said the teen had previously threatened his mother with a knife. Police declined to comment on the report.

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), May 04, 2000.

Let's not forget, much of the support for transit comes from those hoping YOU will ride the bus, train, vanpool and carpool, while they drive their cars, because.....

"IT'S STILL THE DEMOGRAPHICS STUPID!"

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), May 04, 2000.

to Mark: I'm glad to see you finally see the light. An HOV lane is road. Hence, build more roads can be interpreted as build more HOV lanes.

Also, Park'n'Ride facilities need on and off ramps to the highways they serve. On and off ramps are roads, too.

Thank you for your support.

-- Matthew M. Warren (mattinsky@msn.com), May 04, 2000.

"Hence, build more roads can be interpreted as build more HOV lanes. "

Only by individuals whose grip on reality is not good, but then, that would be you, wouldn't it Matt?

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), May 04, 2000.

Never mind me, I'm just trying to figure out if I learned how to make bold type go away.
the craigster

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), May 04, 2000.