[lbo-talk] the petro-thusians have their moment

[martin]

Most US urban centers had appropriate public transit systems that grew 
organically with the communities that they served. These were bought 
and permitted to decline, and then outright destroyed by interests 
associated with the auto and oil industries as they promoted personal 
transportation (fossil fuel powered automobiles).

Many of those same cities (in my experience, San Jose, Sacramento, 
Portland) have attempted to replace the lost mass transit systems, but 
at great expense and with typical corruption. They attempt to place the 
mass transit along paths that were established by automobile transport 
and supplant highway systems. But the people continue to vote the funds 
and the power to pursue these systems because they _want_ a system of 
public transit that works.

I don't think that it's good reasoning to blame the 'stupid and lazy' 
citizens for the state of affairs in public transportation.

Martin

On Sep 23, 2004, at 7:14 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


> I understand that many (if not most) Americans are too stupid and lazy 
> to
> figure out how to use public transit and too chicken shit to leave the
> cocoons of their cars, but would not you expect a bona fide expert
> supposedly trying to solve transportation problems to give a serious
> consideration?  If they do not, there is a serious possibility that 
> their
> effort is nothing but a PR effort to put some window dressing, a "human
> appearance" on the ugly face of the US capitalism.