Is the reign of the ICE ending?

One aspect of city/country is whether or not the style of living distances a person from the experience and knowledge that all life, including human life, is dependent upon a vibrant, healthy and diverse ecosystem, and that ecosystem does not exist merely to serve the pleasures and needs of humans, but to sustain life as we know it. Both city and country residents can be equally distanced from the critical nature of our environment, and vice versa. Maybe we all need a large dose of the wonder a young child displays when she picks up an earth worm and watches it wiggle in her hand, when he sees a butterfly dancing around wild flowers, or when they both see clean water bubbling down a wilderness creek. These three and thousands of other things need to be protected and sustained if any of us are to have a healthy future life on earth.

Another aspect of city/country life that offers a very good comment on another dimension of this question: Tidy Life

Hasufel said:

That said, I do recognize that cities tend to be more energy efficient. I heard that NYC is the most energy efficient city per capita in the US, thanks to public transportation and the preponderance of high-rise buildings...

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I have no desire to use a "public anything"
Public transportation would be a giant step backwards for some myself included. Quality of life is not always compatible with
the most efficient way.

Lloyd the redneck said:

I think you should move farther from town. After all it is about your happiness right?

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My my, Lloyd. One confrontational post after another today. Did someone piss in your cornflakes?

Seasoned Oak said:

I have no desire to use a "public anything"
Public transportation would be a giant step backwards for some myself included. Quality of life is not always compatible with
the most efficient way.

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Same for me. Can't stand public transportation. Every surface is sticky and dirty feeling to me.

Plus, I live 19 miles from work and in the country. It would make less sense for a bus to pick me up than to drive myself.

What do you mean by working well? How much subsidization of someone else's ticket makes it successful? In some cases a taxpayer is paying for more than the person using the transportation. Sometimes it's the same person, sometimes not.

It cannot be assumed that public uses less energy and is better for the environment.

I can't debate that sometimes subsides actually benefit the economy...some people love transit systems and will move to an area and stay longer if they have easy transportation. Some in dying/depressed areas make little to no improvement and are just another burden on the taxpayer.

I am a strong supporter of public transportation. It removes non-enthusiasts from the road, and saves the gas for me!

I've gone down to DC using nothing but rail/subway, LIRR back and forth to NYC for work and pleasure and a couple concerts in Brooklyn. Its good. No fighting for parking or traffic issues. Can have a few drinks or work or both.

bholler said:

In some areas there is little subsidy in others there is allot. But how much of our highway system is subsidised? Does that mean it isnt working? And there is no need to assume public transportation is more efficent it has been proven over and over no assumption needed.

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I would say that our highway system isn't working. The massive taxes we pay in fuel are supposed to be keeping the highways in good order. In many places, they aren't and people are paying tolls on top of that. Infrastructure is crumbling because the funds get siphoned off for other uses.

Since im already paying for public roads and police and fire ill use em if i chose to. As far as public transportation, im glad i dont live in an area where theres traffic jams ,iv been there and wouldnt want to live like that. But its good that a lot of people are fine with it. Leaves the rural areas less crowded. Although lots of people moving here from the city supposedly to get away from crime and crowds but i think they are bringing it with them as crime rates shooting up.

To get back to the original subject ,Id love to have a GM bolt, and put the ICE family van behind me but would prefer if it was twice as big and would be fine at half the range. Gas prices will probably determine how quickly these new modes of transportation will be adopted into the mainstream.

begreen said:

Thread is getting way off track. I don't have a crystal ball, but it would not surprise me if global climate conditions becomes the driving force between retooling and infrastructure change, sooner than later.

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I'll agree it's inevitable, but don't see it coming all that soon. Frankly, there's no reason, considering the cost of maintaining our current infrastructure, that we shouldn't all be zooming to work in autonomous pods in underground tunnels at 600 mph. But each move we make is toward maintaining the mostly-senseless idea of driving large vehicles on deteriorating roads, albeit possibly electric vehicles in place of ICE's. At a minimum, if we could get commercial delivery traffic out of delivery trucks and into a plumbed system, it would dramatically cut down on congestion, noise, and emissions. Yet, folks seem to fight even the simplest such delivery systems, such as refinery pipelines.

Ashful said:

folks seem to fight even the simplest such delivery systems, such as refinery pipelines.

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A lot of truth in that. Many parts of Long Island are notorious for traffic which is served E/W largely by one expressway that can accommodate commercial traffic. A proposal to build a yard that would have allowed for rail shipment of building materials etc and was expected to remove an untold number of trucks from the roads at reduced cost and with less fuel was vigorously opposed. Same idiots will be complaining about their commute time with their next breath.

Ashful said:

Yet, folks seem to fight even the simplest such delivery systems, such as refinery pipelines.

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I for one oppose some pipelines because I see them as expensive mal-investments. The Bakken is in permanent decline and marginal economically (Dakota Access), and Canadian oil-sands appear likely to be un-economic for most plausible future oil price scenarios (Keystone).

Dakota Access might save lives by preventing some trains from exploding (including in our neighborhood), but a better alternative is to tell Warren Buffet he can afford better engineered rail cars.

Gas pipelines to ship PA nat gas to cold Bostoners....I'm all in. But they're not building that.

sportbikerider78 said:

I would say that our highway system isn't working. The massive taxes we pay in fuel are supposed to be keeping the highways in good order. In many places, they aren't and people are paying tolls on top of that. Infrastructure is crumbling because the funds get siphoned off for other uses.

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I would like to see hard data on the amount of fuel taxes "siphoned off for other uses" vs the amount used for roads and bridges. And then also on the amount of funds which in fact are needed to keep the roads and bridges "in good order." I suspect that in fact, while some funds may be siphoned off, the fuel taxes themselves are woefully insufficient to maintain the highway system, and that is the primary reason why the highway system isn't working as well as it could.

The highway system itself is extremely inefficient. Designing a system which works well at peak load means a very excessive and costly system at less than peak load. Combine that with vehicles which are carrying far less than maximum load (one person vs 4-6 design capacity) makes this inefficiency even worse. Passenger vehicle traffic could be reduced by 50% if vehicles simply by each vehicle carrying more people, and congestion would disappear.

Better managing traffic flow through driver-less vehicles also likely would result in the existing system being able to handle 30-50% more traffic. Driver behavior is a cause of a large portion of current congestion.

Excellent post, as always, jebatty. Rideshare programs have been successful in some high-traffic corridors, but obviously don't work well in the vast areas of suburban sprawl where many live today. It's not practical for many to find three passengers going from a common source to a common destination, on the same departure and return schedule, on a daily basis. My version of rideshare is having my kids in the back seat, and passing their schools on my way to work, where I stop and drop them off. This may be more common for those in my narrow age demographic, but that's a short fraction of life.

jebatty said:

Better managing traffic flow through driver-less vehicles also likely would result in the existing system being able to handle 30-50% more traffic. Driver behavior is a cause of a large portion of current congestion.

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Yes! Driver behavior is a huge factor in congestion, not to mention frustration! At the top of the list is distracted drivers, followed by a large fraction of the elderly, and those self-appointed vigilantes who like to hang out in the left lane to throttle traffic on the expressway. I was stuck in a long line of traffic behind a driver yesterday, who seemingly didn't know that one could press the skinny pedal on the right to accelerate, rather choosing to coast up to their final speed (never topping 30 mph in a 45 mph zone) with the engine at idle. This morning, I had a driver come around a sharp blind bend in the road at me, in MY lane! I don't think they even realized they were more than half a vehicle-width out of their lane.

However, some of us might like not resorting to driverless vehicles to resolve this problem, there should be other sensible means of removing such drivers from the road. Not everyone is meant to operate a 5000 lb. instrument of death, yet it seems anyone can get a license to drive!

Ashful said:

those self-appointed vigilantes who like to hang out in the left lane to throttle traffic on the expressway.

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My personal pet peeve and one of the biggest causes of subsequent aggressive and dangerous driving (not on my part!). My oldest son got his license about a year ago. We paid for private lessons and of course he read all associated info and took all required written tests prior to the road test. When I asked, he said that no one had ever told him the left lane is for passing only.

Expanding population is the root of all problems. Not sure people were meant to live stacked on top of one another, for most of history at least.
The ICE isnt going anywhere overnight, but may have to share throne.

Seasoned Oak said:

for most of history at least.

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For most of history people died at 25 of horrible diseases and injuries.

jatoxico said:

For most of history people died at 25 of horrible diseases and injuries.

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You're talking about a few fairly narrow windows of time, such as the American frontier period, or the formerly-named "dark ages". The truth is, 2500 years ago, the average Athenian making it past childhood was living to age 85. The same can be said of the Roman's, at least those not dying in battle.