Subash, Thanks for the perspective from your part of the world. I respect your opinion. Talk to me again after 20 years of auto sales. :-) Your cities are a lot bigger than ours, also with more population density. Chicago is only 9 million people and the 3rd biggest in the US. They said Mumbai was 18 million in the recent news casts. The more you have a concentrated population density, and it works better. We need about 5,000 people per square mile to make the light rail (cheapest) alternative work here. There are 15 square miles of appropriate population density in the 200 square miles of the city of Chicago. Regards, Bob S.
On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 10:11 PM, Subash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, 4 Dec 2008 20:18:57 -0600 > "Bob Sullivan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> It doesn't work for a reason. The folks from the Federal Reserve are >> just trying to point out the absurdity of it all. > > Bob, it works very well here but then the rules are a bit different. :-) > cars in plenty are here, low-cost airlines are here in huge numbers but > the railways is still thriving... > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railways > >> >> PJ, it's the public's choice NOT to support mass transit. >> >> Always has been. Taxes never killed it, cars and suburbia did. > > we don't really have suburbs in the sense you have but a lot of people > do commute from nearby towns to work in the cities and the phenomenon > you describe (cars/suburbia) has actually helped the railways. in the > last five years alone, in my own city chennai (madras), the list of > companies that have set up factories is long: Hyundai, Ford, > Mitsubishi, BMW, Mahindra & Mahindra. and very cheap consumer loans are > available so at least for the middle classes affordability is not an > issue. > > the problem is, the roads are not built for heavy-duty four-wheeled > traffic. i live inside the city and my workplace is about 11km from my > home. i took to riding my motorcycle to work in 2003 and finding it too > stressful, recently, about a month back, switched to the mass rapid > transit system. and glad i did. for a princely sum of 90 INR a month > (about 2 US$) i can take the trains any time of the day, any number of > times i want. and my monthly petrol bill has come down by more than 90% > (i see lenses on the horizon). and i get to walk 20 minutes a day :-). > goodness all round. > > just a POV from this corner of the world... > > regards, subash > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.