Re: Re: (erielack) NJ/PA - Environmental Assessment for Lacka

[walter smith <wsmith5957_@_yahoo.com>]

Schuyler...........

      Very well written & hard to dispute. Was it Oliver Wendell Holmes who said "Taxes are the price of living in a civilization"?? A better phrase is the 'social contract'. I remember in the Goldwater era some town in Arizona decided to make residents 'pay' for the fire dept. If I remember correctly, there was a subscription fee. I guess they'd let ur house burn down if u didn't pay. My father, myself and my grandpa Smith all belonged to the West Pittston fire dept. over the 3 generations. It was, of course, tax supported but I found out that apayments were received from insurance companies that helped defray costs. I guess it was on the theory that there were less payouts for fire losses if there was a well run FD.
     Referring to my previous post about the Laurel Line, I'll bet that if the 2 counties & cities had come up with a small subsidy, the Laurel Line would still be running & it wouldn't cost the millions it will to restore what they once had.

Walt Smith




________________________________
From: Schuyler Larrabee <schuyler.larrabee_@_verizon.net>
To: EL Mail List <erielack_@_lists.railfan.net>
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 11:25:18 PM
Subject: RE: Re: (erielack) NJ/PA - Environmental Assessment for Lacka

> Real bottom line?  Nobody, but NOBODY, make money hauling people.  Never have; don't now; never
will.  ALL
> forms of passenger transportation require subsidy: air, sea, highway, rail -- even your own
private automobile, for which
> you are paying even as you sit and read this.
> 
> Passenger transport is a necessity, a social service, which MUST happen.  So, many countries
simply suck it up and deal
> with it.
> 
> Randy Brown

Further to what Randy wrote, how many of you Truly Understand what it costs you to run your car?
Never mind the cost of gas, that's easy to figure, you know, $2.65/gallon, divided by 25 MPG, equals
10.48 cents per mile.  But there's more, the insurance, repairs, tires, maintenance, parking, taxes
(in some states where there is an ownership, excise, tax), amortizing the purchase of the car, so on
and so forth.  When I bought my current car, I began keeping track of all this out of curiosity,
using a simple Excel spreadsheet.  Once we got to a mileage which was enough to get the numbers to
settle down, it worked out to be a steady cost of around $0.38 per mile. 

Now, when you know that, and you do some preliminary thinking about things before you walk out the
door, public transportation suddenly becomes quite attractive if it goes where you want to go.  I
work seven miles from home, so getting to work and return would be 14 x 38c = $5.32, IF the parking
is free.  Since I work downtown, the "cheap" lot is $17.00 for the day.  Holy moly!  That's $22.32
for the "convenience" of driving myself to work and back!!  And how many of you work that close to
home?

Contrast to using the MBTA (in my case).  If I were so dumb as to buy individual tickets, it's a
$4.00 cost ($2 each way).  But I get a monthly pass through work, which costs me $59.00.  Nominally,
I take the T back and forth for 16 days per week (I do drive for a specific reason once weekly), for
32 trips.  $59/32 = $1.85 per trip, with no hassle about finding exact change.  But my wife uses the
pass on those days I drive, so it's really 40 trips and $1.485 per trip.

Now, this works because I live ~3/8 mile from a T stop, and it's ~1/4 mile from the T stop to the
office. Not too much of a burden to walk, and the service is frequent.  The reason I drive once
weekly is that I want to go to the model railroad club after work on the one day, and while I can
get there on the commuter rail (and do on occasion),  I have to leave pretty early to get back home
by midnight, so the work at the club would get (even) shorter.  What we really need is the dense
network of light rail that once existed, running frequently and on extended hours.

One more:  It does cross my mind, now, when I want to run to the Local Hobby Shop, which is
unfortunately not so local.  The good one is ~30 miles away.  So when I go there, the cost of
whatever I buy has been increased by 60 x $0.38 = $22.80.

People don't really understand the cost of a car.  It's just "there" and they use it without
thinking much about it.  And I'm guilty too.  It's just that I do know where all that money goes.

SGL





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