YOU Smart owners are to blame!!

[nprsmart]

Originally Posted by vwW12

Actually, mass transit increases pollution and I'd love to know where does traffic flow freely thanks to mass transit.

Come visit the Tampa Bay area in 15 years and you'll see where no traffic is flowing at all. Current growth projections have us in total gridlock with no possible way to build enough lanes for all the expected cars.

The folks in Europe are way ahead of us in handling mass transit. They have fast trains (TEV) where we have I-4, I-75 and I-95, they have commuter trains where we have the parking lot aka the Veterans Expressway (the veterans should sue for defamation), and they have streets filled with little smart cars where we have H2s and Excursions.

ON A BRIGHTER NOTE: The Pinellas Trail is one of the most popular rails to trails projects in the country. All the the counties around Tampa Bay are starting to get serious about bike lanes and bike routes, a good thing given the growing number of folks who are now using bicycles to get to work. And finally, the ridership on the Pasco County bus system is growing rapidly in the face of $4 a gallon gasoline. The guy in the full size SUV asking me yesterday after church how I like my smart is just another indication of how the country is starting to adjust to high gas prices. (IRONY: The guy in question is the shortest member of our county commission and I'm the tallest member of our city council. Both of us serve on the MPO that is trying to figure a way out of the gridlock we are facing 15 years from now...)

The original post was a joke, but jokes are funny because they have a grain of truth that makes us cringe as we laugh. We smart owners are contributing to the drop in gas tax revenues. As Pogo would say "We have met the enemy and they are us."

I'll do my part to increase gas tax revenues by driving over to the meet in Orlando this Friday night. I hope you'll come up from Coral Gables and join us.

[Ralph Finneren]

Criminee--ya got me feeling guilty now for ridin the bicycle to work--
No gas--no gas/sales tax to the state/federal
No state registration fees
No insurance with state mandatory $190 state catastrophic injury fund
Just call me "freeloader!"

[nprsmart]

Originally Posted by Ralph Finneren

Criminee--ya got me feeling guilty now for ridin the bicycle to work--

No insurance with state mandatory $190 state catastrophic injury fund
Just call me "freeloader!"

Gas goes up another dollar a gallon and you are going to have lots of competition for the bike rack at work.

[CharBae]

Don't forget that you don't need a license to ride a bike (only to vote). But But But how will the state ever maintain order with all these anarchist bike riders terrorizing our streets. The horror, the horror...

There has been some local rumblings about tolling roads to pay for maintenance/improvements. They should base tolls on car length, since smaller cars means less wear and tear on the road surface.

[randyzimmer]

Originally Posted by mmmeat

Big oil ... that's just an idiotic phrase...

Exxon was big and so was Mobil.
Then, they merged and the feds allowed it.
That makes at least that one company pretty big.

[p1nball]

Originally Posted by Robbie51

we had electric cars through gm and toyota once, but they took that away in a heart beat. yeah all the EVs were sucked up so quick and guess who bought the car companies out???? big surprise, big oil. just like gm took away all the electric trolleys and replaced them with gas guzzling buses. when it all boils down to it it's about what makes the most $$$$.

As a long time members of "Electric Railroader Association" it is a Know fact the GM did in fact buy out many small eletric railways. If any one would either take the time to really look this up in your local library, you would find that there was some form of mass transit near all large cities or towns! They were known as "inter urbans" Their were many large and famous one in the northeast, northwest, and one the west coast!!! Cities like LA,NY,BOS,Philly,Chi,and many more had electric buses, trolleys, inter urban lines and even some small cummuter lines!! It was GM that help pay for there replacement by there buses.
Even here in Charlotte there was and is great debate on the tracks of local streetcar lines. Charlotte now has the most recent light rail system. People all said it was a waste of taxpayer money. Try to get on it now!!! Beyond anyones guess, packed!! parking lots full. Adding more lines!! The following is some factsn the tracks of local streetcar lines. Between towns, they used their own rights of way, sometimes running alongside the primitive roads of that era, sometimes running cross-country. Interurban cars were usually intermediate in size between city streetcars and railroad coaches. Many lines carried express and carload freight, as well as passengers. They were especially common in the Midwest, stretching from Ohio westward to Wisconsin and Iowa. At one time it was possible to ride from upstate New York (somewhere east of Rochester) to Wisconsin, using a series of connecting interurban lines.
Beginning in the 1920s, the interurbans began to disappear, as automobiles became more common and roads were improved. The Great Depression hastened this process. By 1940, most of them were gone. World War II kept the survivors alive artifically for a bit longer, but in the 1950s and 1960s the downward trend continued. Almost all the remaining interurbans died, except two that still operate passenger service and one that still operates freight service.
Following is a list of interurbans that continued passenger service into the 1950s, plus two that still operates electric freight service, although they gave up passenger service much earlier.
Last
passenger
service Name State Notes 1936 Mason City & Clear Lake Iowa Still operates electric freight service as the Iowa Traction Railroad 1950 Baltimore & Annapolis Maryland Some of the right-of-way is now used by Baltimore's light rail line to Glen Burnie. Denver Tramways Colorado Former Denver & Intermountain lines 1951 Lehigh Valley Transit Pennsylvania Philadelphia to Allentown Piedmont & Northern South and North Carolina SC Division: Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson and Greenwood;
NC Division: Charlotte and Gastonia;
After dieselization, the line continued as a freight-only carrier; much of the trackage is still in use under CSX. Milwaukee Rapid Transit and Speedrail Wisconsin Milwaukee to Waukesha and Hales Corners; former interurban lines of the Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Co., a remnant of which still operates as the East Troy Electric Railroad 1952 Bamberger Railroad Utah Salt Lake City to Ogden Charles City Western Iowa Lackawanna & Wyoming ValleyPennsylvania Scranton to Wilkes-Barre Salt Lake, Garfield & Western Utah Diesel passenger service until 1958 West Penn Railways Pennsylvania Area southeast of Pittsburgh 1953 Cedar Rapids & Iowa City Iowa Still operates diesel freight service Pittsburgh Railways Pennsylvania Pittsburgh to Washington and Charleroi 1954 Hagerstown & Frederick Maryland 1955 Fort Dodge, Des Moines & Southern Iowa Some trackage in and near Boone is now used by the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad. Sand Springs Railway Oklahoma Tulsa to Sand Springs 1956 Illinois Terminal Railroad Illinois and Missouri Springfield, Peoria, Bloomington, Champaign and St. Louis 1957 Chicago, Aurora & Elgin Illinois Third-rail power; used 'L' tracks to reach Chicago's Loop 1958 Key System California San Francisco to Oakland Portland Traction Oregon Portland to Gresham and Oregon City; since 1986 the Gresham right-of-way has been used by a light-rail line Waterloo, Cedar Falls & Northern Iowa The last service was from Waterloo to Cedar Falls; service to Cedar Rapids had ended in 1956, and to Waverly in 1954. 1961 Pacific Electric California Los Angeles and surrounding area 1963 Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee Illinois and Wisconsin Mixed trolley and third-rail power; used 'L' tracks to reach Chicago's Loop still
operating Chicago, South Shore & South Bend Illinois and Indiana Now operated by Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District Philadelphia & Western Pennsylvania Philadelphia to Norristown; now operated by Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority as the Norristown High Speed Line
Note: This list may be incomplete; I appreciate additions and corrections!
This page was last updated on 14 July 2007.

[cosmart]

Originally Posted by mmmeat

Really? That's wrong.


Really? That explains all the hybrid buses that GM is producing...



Really? And all this time I thought it was about what people would buy...

Your pal,
Meat.

You are wrong. Auto manufacturers are about MAKING MONEY, not SELLING VEHICLES. They are two different things.

This is why for years the US manufacturers gave up the AWD car segment to foreign competition. They used to make a lot more profit on SUVs than cars, so why sell an AWD Focus when you can sell an Escape for more money?

Consequently, cars from the big three have become almost completely irrelevant where I live (Colorado). People want/need AWD, and don't necessarily want to buy a truck or SUV, so they drive Subarus, Audis, BMWs, and other cars with AWD. The Denver metro area has almost 3 Million people and about five Buicks. Now, Ford makes an AWD Taurus and Chrysler makes an AWD 300, and no one buys them because the mileage sucks. What they need to make is an AWD Focus, but they can't figure out how to undercut Subaru in price, so they don't bother. The ONLY relatively fuel efficient AWD car sold by the big three is the Pontiac Vibe, which is really a Toyota Matrix.

Meanwhile, Subaru sells like hotcakes. SUBARU TOOLS : NEWS : Corporate Sales Results

Why did Ford make their hybrid effort an SUV? They could make more money on it. If they had put the engineering into a hybrid Fusion they would sell more units, but make less profit.

The GM EV1 was pulled because they engineered an awesome super car that cost so much to produce that they couldn't recoup their costs.

The Tesla is priced to make money.

The GM Volt is going to be a very expensive car. All the hoopla about how it is going to save GM and the US is BS. They won't be able to make the economics of the car work for most people until gas is $15 a gallon, because it will be $40K. People will just buy a Cobalt or a smart. And believe it or not, GM has to look at the entire package, including their dealers. Electric cars will not generate the parts and service revenue that ICE vehicles do, so the selling profit margin to the dealers will have to be higher to keep them in business, and the build margin will have to be higher to GM to offset the loss in parts revenue.

When you talk pure electric vehicles, the US has a particular problem with electric vehicles in that the standard wall voltage is 110V. Europe is better off with their 220V standard. EV1 owners had to have a special charger installed in their garage to achieve fast charging times. This won't fly for a mass market vehicle. We need to push for a battery standard so that battery packs can be swapped in/out of vehicles easily to facilitate roadside battery swap 'gas stations'. Conoco/BP/Exxon will get behind this at some point. Put money on it.

[deltadart]

Can banning the bicycle be there next idea?

[SmartCard]

Originally Posted by mike-in-sa

The original post was a joke, wasn't it? Wasn't it?

Blaming the $0.10 gas tax increase on us smart drivers was a joke, but the shortfall in the highway fund and talk of increasing the federal gas tax was not!

Originally Posted by cosmart

You are wrong. Auto manufacturers are about MAKING MONEY, not SELLING VEHICLES. They are two different things.

not entirely true....the automakers won't make money in the long run if they sell a crappy product.....at this point it IS about selling vehicles!

[BigWarpGuy]

Originally Posted by mdfortwoguy

You are aware that there are still cities out there like Dayton, Ohio, which still use electric trolley buses... right?

I believe in NJ there is an increase of use of buses that run on compressed natural gas. They look similar to the other buses but have an attachment on the roof.