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They'll drive more. It's been proven time and again in studies. Also, the population will eventually increase enough to bring congestion to what it was before. There's not much difference in traffic density between a free-flowing highway and a congested one. You might have free flow for a while...

Just to correct a few misconceptions: I'm not advocating ONE solution to all our problems. In fact, one reason we're in this mess to begin with was the reliance on the auto to fill nearly every transportation role. Autos can serve many niche roles, no doubt about it. They're good to run...

The Honda undoubtably had a lead-acid battery, which basically sucks. No power in the cold, heavy, and needs to be replaced every 5-7 years. This technology, which didn't exist even 5 years ago, should make EVs feasible. About the Prius, I read about lots of owners who rave about them. Maybe...

Couldn't they be offered as an option? And a lot of people still don't use even standard selt belts. Uncomfortable? Riding in a car by definition is uncomfortable compared to a train, so I'll just be a little more uncomfortable but safer. I never had a license. It just wasn't my cup of tea...

I'm with you there. If only we had the will to make driving tests harder, periodically retest, and get the worst 25% of drivers off the roads for good, accidents would probably almost never happen. In fact, insurance companies use the term "collision" because accident implies nobody is at fault...

That's certainly true, and if anyone is to blame it would be the government for not having higher gas taxes. And that basically brings us full circle. Sure, I'd rather have $10 per gallon gas and no CAFE regulations so as to let the free market choose. My point here was not to have us all ride...

Source for above statement. 1900-39.6% urban, 60.4% rural (total population-76,212,168) 1990-75.2% urban, 24.8% rural (total population-248,709,873) By 2050 some estimates put the percentage living in urban areas at greater than 90%. The northeast from Boston to Washington and most of...

If that's the case then EVs would be perfect for most people. I was under the impression based on car buying choices that most people drive 100 miles each way to work while towing 6000 pounds, or climb up mountains every weekend. Or at least that's what these idiotic car commercials lead me to...

Interesting article. It seems the thrust of the article is that CAFE standards will be difficult to raise because of people's current buying preferences. Now exactly whose fault is it that people have these buying preferences? Yes, it's the automakers who for years pushed SUVs and other large...

Thinking of something momentous to say for his 10,000th post perhaps? At least that's what I'd be doing in his shoes.

Unfortunately, the insurance won't pay for the repair itself, just damage to the house and contents. Now we have to go through boxes of my father's baseball cards and other crap to see if we have enough to file a claim. There's a $1000 deductible besides. :( Never thought of it that way. :D Oh...

Retest under more favorable conditions:

I've gotten over 9400Kbps on occasion but I guess the lines are slow today.

Tell me about it. :bglaugh: Wikipedia reference Not mentioned in the wikipedia article, perhaps urban legend: I heard that the name came about because the area was largely salt marshes where flushing human waste might be problematic. Because of that, maps had "NO FLUSHING". The NO part was...

Yep, that's roughly 22 mph for the 4 mile portion of the ride. My speed varied between 15 and 30 mph for this stretch, depending upon terrain, although the bulk of it was at 22 to 24 mph (my comfort zone when everything's working right). The rest of the ride I wasn't so lucky, so the overall...

Bottled water is about the dumbest thing the marketing weanies ever came up with. I see idiots paying $1 a bottle or more for water, and then dumping the bottles wherever they feel like it (including my front lawn). :arge: If anything should be outlawed, it should be bottled water. Those stupid...

Weather for Berlin I wish we had this weather here instead of 95°F and humid like it was yesterday. :( Occasionally I check weather overseas. As a general rule Western European summers seem to have highs in the 60s or 70s, lows in the 50s or even high 40s. That's why the heat wave two years...

You're right and I agree 100% with everything in your post, but as Will said what's done is done. For what it's worth, I'd trust anyone on this forum to raise an unplanned child more than I would trust most of the general population to raise a planned one. In my case it would be more like...

Congratulations! :beer: If he shows up exactly on November 30 (my birthday) name him after me if it's a boy. :mrgrn: And congratulations Chewy! :beer:

Same here. I don't mind the government supporting people who can't work for whatever reason (unless they have a self-afflicted "disability" like drug abuse or alcoholism). However, if you have a genetic disability that you're highly likely to pass on to your offspring then a condition of getting...

I know that's not a commuter link. I'm just figuring that for people on holiday, or visiting, or whatever it seems late afternoon to evening is the most likely travel time, perhaps even later evening. Or maybe mid-mornings when they're on the way. Harder to figure peak times with long distance...

Same here. I've actually talked of going to Canada or Niagara Falls this fall or winter with my mom. We're debating whether to drive or take Amtrak. I'm sure you know what my preference would be. ;)

I'd guess from late afternoon through early evening. That would probably be the time most people finished whatever they're doing, and then hop the train to get back home, or wherever else their going. Or at least those were the times Amtrak seemed most crowded here in the Northeast. Just...

It's from nycsubway.org. There's thousands of pictures there of both the retired and present fleets. I could spend literally days browsing their huge collection of images. Lots of the pictures of long retired trains take me right back to my childhood or otherwise evoke some long forgotten...

Did that happen during the week you were in NY and met me, or was it some other time? Yeah, I've fallen asleep more times than I care to think about, especially when I got out of work at 10 or 11. Never had anyone bother me. And you should have seen some of the characters I encountered when I...

Of the two the Cascades has the better schedule by roughly 90 minutes, probably due to lighter equipment/shorter trains. The upgrade to business class results in more comfortable seating and the other mentioned amenities. It looks like both use the same route, at least from Seattle to Portland...

The way I usually dress somehow I think I'm very unlikely to be bothered on public transit. Maybe I'll get some fellow riders trying to give me quarters but that's about it.

It's a combination of the fumes plus the plastics/leathers typically used in car interiors plus the constant excessive accelerations/decelerations which all combine to make me physically sick in short order. My tolerance is a bit higher in winter when the air smells better. And yes, the fumes...

There's probably some truth to that. It's also true that since I've done a lot less "adventurous" stuff in my 44 years than you have in your 26 what may seem routine to you might even seem like an adventure to me. Even something simple like taking the train to Manhattan around the holidays...

Great posts, Tim. One thing that always annoys me is when people talk about public transportation as if only lepers ride it. For what it's worth, I like the idea of being able to mingle with others when I'm traveling. Who knows, I may even meet my future wife on my next subway ride. Stranger...

In other words, it's the journey that matters more than the destination. So why not when you finally complete the game, start a new,even harder one? I'll admit I do share those sentiments somewhat. I don't really play games, but when I'm involved trying to get a circuit or other project to work...

Along those lines of thought here's a nice article: Subsidizing Big Oil

I submit that this was a big mistake for two reasons. First, enforcement is pretty much not practical. Traffic will move at its own pace based on the road, traffic conditions, a whole bunch of other factors. The only way to get comliance is with saturation enforcement. However, this costs a...

That's the point I'm trying to make. The average person isn't going to bother doing kW-hr per mile calculations or anything else an engineering type like me or Clocker might. They're simply going to see (using my proposal) gas=expensive, electric=cheaper. I'm also surprised nobody addressed...

Now this is something I totally don't understand. You seem like a fairly intelligent person. Merc is definitely an intelligent person, more so than probably anyone else here. I'd find it incredible if you two couldn't think of things to keep you occupied for millenia, nevermind just the...

Classic Cougtek. :diablo:

Bush might be dumber than a potato chip but at least I knew what I was voting for. Gore I just don't trust, especially given who he served under as VP. Next election should be even more interesting. It's looking like it might be Hillary versus Rudy.

First, to clarify what I was proposing, it is merely an example of manipulating the market towards electrics. A $5 or even $10 gas tax will only make driving less affordable if you insist on driving a gas car. Even then many will still be able to afford it. An electric will of course be cheaper...

Show me where in any of my posts I said one damned thing about "eliminating" automobiles. I feel they're not the best choice in many cases, but that doesn't mean they don't have valid uses. I feel if we had a system where each mode was used for what it does best autos would be used a lot less...

While I feel increasing gas taxes is worth a try, I also somehow feel even $100/gallon gasoline won't get Detroit to start making EVs. EVs will cost Detroit a good part of their spare parts business as they break down far less frequently. And then you'll have the mechanics unions and service...

Um, that's what we have now in most of the country. I hardly call a transportation system where the auto is the sole means of getting around in many places a system with many choices. Suppose you can't drive, or maybe just don't want to, don't want the hassle of owning a car, can't afford a car...

I agree with you 100% here. If we really want to reduce fossil fuel usage, the goal of policy should be to create a more balanced transportation network. This basically means greatly reducing car travel and car ownership, not the reverse. CAFE standards really do nothing in that regard. Even an...

Even color lasers are relatively affordable these days. I've been using a Samsung CLP-510 since last December. It cost me $200 after sales tax and a $70 rebate. Probably not much more than a decent inkjet but far less problems. The toner cartridges last for 2000 pages (probably more if the...

Toshiba says they won't be debuting the new technology for another 5 years. Given the way flash RAM capacity is at least doubling each year we'll probably have 1 TB thumb drives by then. For me personally I'm more than happy with current drive capacities. They've well outpaced my storage needs...

I've noticed the same thing. I went to Newegg to buy another 1GB for my mom's machine. The cheapest DDR400 1GB sticks are in the $63.99 area but DDR2 1GB is going for as little as $33.99. If someone has a machine capable of using DDR2 now is obviously a great time to add RAM. I guess it's still...

Very interesting article which I can definitely relate to. I had a long commute to both high school and college. High school was about an hour and a half each way. College was roughly two hours each way. I remember each commute in detail. Funny thing was I started both at roughly the same time...

Actually if you have a heat pump system you can get 2 or 3 times the heat per unit of energy used compared to resistance heating. And electric heating can be more efficient regardless if you only have one or two people in a home, and they just heat whatever rooms they're in rather than the whole...

Today I noticed that my temporary internet files folder was well over 1GB. Also, when I went to disk cleanup it told me I would only gain 1700KB by deleting my temporary internet files. Figuring that something was wrong, I went to my file manager and deleted all the folders and files in my...

Correct, the LAN settings are all blank. Anyway, downloads do work OK in Opera so I would imagine this is an IE specific problem rather than something having to do with my LAN setup. I should note that a while back I had to set my LAN TCP/IP properties to access specific DNS addresses in order...

:cry: My condolences on Booker. Sad thing to lose a pet.