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Big Convention Pulls Out Of San Francisco, Citing Unsafe Streets

PTF said:
Quite a difference.
What happened to the good old days when you can chase a Dodge Charger with a Mustang GT ?
R.I.P. Steve McQueen.
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The CGI commercial in the cornfield was a haunting reminder of what has been lost.
 
Jack Hays said:
Most interesting. Not sure I would ever be comfortable with a subway in earthquake country. Or is your Metro above ground?

The accordion driving is the worst. Does your Advanced Cruise Control handle that?
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It's a mixed system but it isn't mixed because of earthquake fears, it's mixed because of property rights and cost feasibility.
We danced around the whole "Subway to the Sea" argument for ten years until LA Metro said, "You know what, screw the subway part, we're taking over one of the old trolley lines, rehabbing it and running above ground light commuter rail for "the last mile".
Hence the Expo Line to Santa Monica.
Works even better than it did 80-90 years ago when it was Red Car Lines.
Simply put, LA never should have torn up all those city trolley tracks and we're relearning how to love taking urban rail again like we used to.
Earthquakes are a bad thing to be sure but BART up in San Francisco has survived many temblors, some fairly large. Apparently engineers know how to build subways in earthquake zones or so it seems.

Accordion driving is exactly what I was referring to WRT Advanced Cruise Control on the Chrysler Pacificas.
You don't even worry about it because the ACC just deals with it.
Just keep your hands on the tiller and your feet can take a break. Just set the desired speed and take your feet off the gas and brake and steer.
It will also let you know if you're drifting out of your lane, too, or if someone's in your blind spot.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
It's a mixed system but it isn't mixed because of earthquake fears, it's mixed because of property rights and cost feasibility.
We danced around the whole "Subway to the Sea" argument for ten years until LA Metro said, "You know what, screw the subway part, we're taking over one of the old trolley lines, rehabbing it and running above ground light commuter rail for "the last mile".
Hence the Expo Line to Santa Monica.
Works even better than it did 80-90 years ago when it was Red Car Lines.
Simply put, LA never should have torn up all those city trolley tracks and we're relearning how to love taking urban rail again like we used to.
Earthquakes are a bad thing to be sure but BART up in San Francisco has survived many temblors, some fairly large. Apparently engineers know how to build subways in earthquake zones or so it seems.

Accordion driving is exactly what I was referring to WRT Advanced Cruise Control on the Chrysler Pacificas.
You don't even worry about it because the ACC just deals with it.
Just keep your hands on the tiller and your feet can take a break. Just set the desired speed and take your feet off the gas and brake and steer.
It will also let you know if you're drifting out of your lane, too.
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Yup. In Indiana there were Inter-Urban light rail lines everywhere. Auto companies and bus lines lobbied them out of business. Bad mistake.
 
Jack Hays said:
Yup. In Indiana there were Inter-Urban light rail lines everywhere. Auto companies and bus lines lobbied them out of business. Bad mistake.
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Then you know the story of the old Pacific Electric and the Red Car Line here in Los Angeles no doubt.
Same thing, the big car and tire companies together with Big Oil wanted the city out of the urban rail business because they wanted to build a paradise with everyone in their own individual car.
In retrospect it was actually a good thing we did build the freeways however we did NOT need to sunset the urban rail. We should have just chosen to do BOTH and KEEP both and we should have told the lobbyists to go pound sand.

I'm sure it is possible to debate back and forth as to why it had to boil down to a zero sum game with an either/or choice but in retrospect it turned out that either/or is just a fool's errand. Another example of why either/or is foolishness is the Thorium nuclear power question.
In retrospect we should have invested in BOTH, but instead we shelved Thorium and went with Uranium/Plutonium to satisfy the military's need for weapons, but had we made the LARGER choice of doing both, today our nuclear power industry would be vibrant, relatively safe by several orders of magnitude and cheap...and largely THORIUM.
 
Jack Hays said:
Yup. In Indiana there were Inter-Urban light rail lines everywhere. Auto companies and bus lines lobbied them out of business. Bad mistake.
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By the way, are you also referring to Kentuckyanna? Because I suspect that is where urban rail would be most appreciated being that Kentuckyanna is or was such a vibrant and growing metro area.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Then you know the story of the old Pacific Electric and the Red Car Line here in Los Angeles no doubt.
Same thing, the big car and tire companies together with Big Oil wanted the city out of the urban rail business because they wanted to build a paradise with everyone in their own individual car.
In retrospect it was actually a good thing we did build the freeways however we did NOT need to sunset the urban rail. We should have just chosen to do BOTH and KEEP both and we should have told the lobbyists to go pound sand.

I'm sure it is possible to debate back and forth as to why it had to boil down to a zero sum game with an either/or choice but in retrospect it turned out that either/or is just a fool's errand. Another example of why either/or is foolishness is the Thorium nuclear power question.
In retrospect we should have invested in BOTH, but instead we shelved Thorium and went with Uranium/Plutonium to satisfy the military's need for weapons, but had we made the LARGER choice of doing both, today our nuclear power industry would be vibrant, relatively safe by several orders of magnitude and cheap...and largely THORIUM.
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I'm not smart enough to be in the Thorium discussion. I agree about freeways, an idea Eisenhower brought back from Germany.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
By the way, are you also referring to Kentuckyanna? Because I suspect that is where urban rail would be most appreciated being that Kentuckyanna is or was such a vibrant and growing metro area.
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I have not lived in Indiana since 1972. Please elaborate on "Kentuckyanna." Where exactly?
 
Jack Hays said:
I'm not smart enough to be in the Thorium discussion. I agree about freeways, an idea Eisenhower brought back from Germany.
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Believe me I am not smart enough either except for the fact that I used to hear my nuclear physicist father grousing about the fact that "this is America and we could afford to do both".

Freeways brought over from Germany?
Pffffttt, yeah maybe if we could all do 120 mph on them, although I will admit that it's pretty funny when I am doing 80 and people pass me like I'm walking.

The moment you cross Beach Blvd. on I-405 into Orange County, the "de facto" speed limit is 85-90.
I don't care what the official limit is, I'm just saying that's what everyone's doing.
 
Jack Hays said:
Loo-vul.

New Albany? Jeffersonville?

Would you go over or under the Ohio?
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Over of course, but now you're asking me to clear away some cobwebs, I have not been back to Loo-vul since 2000.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Believe me I am not smart enough either except for the fact that I used to hear my nuclear physicist father grousing about the fact that "this is America and we could afford to do both".

Freeways brought over from Germany?
Pffffttt, yeah maybe if we could all do 120 mph on them, although I will admit that it's pretty funny when I am doing 80 and people pass me like I'm walking.

The moment you cross Beach Blvd. on I-405 into Orange County, the "de facto" speed limit is 85-90.
I don't care what the official limit is, I'm just saying that's what everyone's doing.
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Germany's autobahns were built for military mobilization. As was the US interstate system. In both cases civilian use immediately supplanted the original military motive.

De facto speed limit on I-95 is 80 mph. My best personal anecdote concerns I-70. Going west toward Topeka it was 75-80. After Topeka 85-90.
 
Jack Hays said:
1. My comments about DC traffic were not comments about what you term "commuter roads" but rather traffic on regular intra-DC streets. So you can put that straw man to rest.
2. I have no idea (and little interest) about average commute times within DC. My point was that there were too many occasions within DC when I found myself thoroughly stuck for a long time.
3. I have no doubt a DC resident (with or without a car) can move around the city more efficiently than I can. Who cares? That's not the point.
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Did you look at the charts/maps I linked to? Did you mess with them so as to maximize the information you could draw from them?

Now you're implying all those "green" streets shown on the chart, to say nothing of the one's that aren't major enough to appear on the map and that I keep telling you are the streets D.C. residents use because they aren't congested are the streets you have in mind, because you "on several occasions" encountered bad traffic in D.C.

Yeah, you go with that....I guess next, you'll tell me about an accident you encountered on a side street?

Red:
Oh, really? Which ones? Do tell. You have so much knowledge of D.C. traffic, so much more than I after 60 years of living in D.C. and having on "too many occasions" been "stuck for a long time, that you should have no trouble telling us all about it. So by all means, do tell.

I have already identified one "regular intra-DC" set of streets that allow one to duck tons of "commuter road" traffic. E.g, at least two of the streets I mentioned as non-bad-traffic alternatives to "commuter roads" appear on the "traveling during the week" map/chart: 15th and 13th Streets, both "green" as soon as one exits the downtown stretch of them, and never, on average, go "red."

Jack Hays said:
My point was that there were too many occasions within DC when I found myself thoroughly stuck for a long time.
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Well, there's a credible, objective and authoritative basis for evaluating nature and extent of traffic congestion in D.C. NOT!!!


Jack Hays said:
3. I have no doubt a DC resident (with or without a car) can move around the city more efficiently than I can. Who cares? That's not the point.
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The only person who brought up you is is you, who apparently hasn't ever lived in D.C. -- "From 1976 to 2017 we regularly lived in the Reston area between foreign assignments -- , yet is well versed on DC's traffic.

Well, you're right; your, Jack Hays, driving efficiency isn't the point and never was, except perhaps in your mind you "occasional" exposure to bad traffic in D.C. constitutes an due foundation for proclaiming traffic in D.C. is "terrible." The point has always been that if one lives in D.C., one does not have to deal with bad traffic, and the reason that was and is the point is that another member made the ambiguous remark, "now the TRAFFIC....that is an entirely different animal," and I bothered to offer my firsthand knowledge of the nature of traffic in D.C., "in D.C." because the geographic context of the conversation, lo this thread, is San Francisco.


I've written from the start on D.C.'s traffic. That point/theme is the only one I ever introduced with regard to D.C.'s traffic, it's the only one I've defended and supported....

Parting Remarks:
So, let me now make myself clear: I am done with your effrontery in trying to feign knowing more than I about my hometown -- the place that has been my primary city of residence since 60 years ago when I was born in D.C., not VA or MD -- and you do not. You even had the gall to, in effect, imply I didn't know what I was talking about, something that you recanted yet didn't apologize for the affront, which doesn't shock me because it's clear you haven't the breeding to know that (1) retracting is not apologizing and (2) exhibiting the hubris of, effectively, tell someone they don't know what they are talking about re: their hometown and surrounding areas is insulting, especially when you didn't confirm your remark before making it. Of course, I don't expect anyone to apologize for that of which they have no remorse, the affront.
 
Xelor said:
Did you look at the charts/maps I linked to? Did you mess with them so as to maximize the information you could draw from them?

Now you're implying all those "green" streets shown on the chart, to say nothing of the one's that aren't major enough to appear on the map and that I keep telling you are the streets D.C. residents use because they aren't congested are the streets you have in mind, because you "on several occasions" encountered bad traffic in D.C.

Yeah, you go with that....I guess next, you'll tell me about an accident you encountered on a side street?

Red:
Oh, really? Which ones? Do tell. You have so much knowledge of D.C. traffic, so much more than I after 60 years of living in D.C. and having on "too many occasions" been "stuck for a long time, that you should have no trouble telling us all about it. So by all means, do tell.

I have already identified one "regular intra-DC" set of streets that allow one to duck tons of "commuter road" traffic. E.g, at least two of the streets I mentioned as non-bad-traffic alternatives to "commuter roads" appear on the "traveling during the week" map/chart: 15th and 13th Streets, both "green" as soon as one exits the downtown stretch of them, and never, on average, go "red."


Well, there's a credible, objective and authoritative basis for evaluating nature and extent of traffic congestion in D.C. NOT!!!



The only person who brought up you is is you, who apparently hasn't ever lived in D.C. -- "From 1976 to 2017 we regularly lived in the Reston area between foreign assignments -- , yet is well versed on DC's traffic.

Well, you're right; your, Jack Hays, driving efficiency isn't the point and never was, except perhaps in your mind you "occasional" exposure to bad traffic in D.C. constitutes an due foundation for proclaiming traffic in D.C. is "terrible." The point has always been that if one lives in D.C., one does not have to deal with bad traffic, and the reason that was and is the point is that another member made the ambiguous remark, "now the TRAFFIC....that is an entirely different animal," and I bothered to offer my firsthand knowledge of the nature of traffic in D.C., "in D.C." because the geographic context of the conversation, lo this thread, is San Francisco.


I've written from the start on D.C.'s traffic. That point/theme is the only one I ever introduced with regard to D.C.'s traffic, it's the only one I've defended and supported....

Parting Remarks:
So, let me now make myself clear: I am done with your effrontery in trying to feign knowing more than I about my hometown -- the place that has been my primary city of residence since 60 years ago when I was born in D.C., not VA or MD -- and you do not. You even had the gall to, in effect, imply I didn't know what I was talking about, something that you recanted yet didn't apologize for the affront, which doesn't shock me because it's clear you haven't the breeding to know that (1) retracting is not apologizing and (2) exhibiting the hubris of, effectively, tell someone they don't know what they are talking about re: their hometown and surrounding areas is insulting, especially when you didn't confirm your remark before making it. Of course, I don't expect anyone to apologize for that of which they have no remorse, the affront.
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My goodness. Quite the disproportionate response. Whatever problem you're trying to solve, I don't think it's anything I did. Perhaps you are seeking on line the success that eluded you in life?

My point was and remains that I had enough bad traffic episodes in DC that I stopped driving there. None of your citations or decades of living in DC can change that, and recounting my own experiences hardly counts as effrontery in any context.

Good luck in your future endeavors.
 
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