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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (226326)	3/25/2005 8:43:52 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576311

Ted, I once had a discussion with a coworker over the sad state of public transportation in California. To be brief, here are some things I've learned or noticed: - It costs L.A. twice as much to build a subway tunnel than, for example, NYC because L.A. needs to have it earthquake-proof. Actually, that's only partly true. You don't have to do too much seismic upgrade because its in the ground. Earthquake energy waves are not very destructive when they are traveling through the ground. The major problem with the LA subway was that they made some serious mistakes....some due to incompetency; others that were unforeseen. An example of the latter was the methane gas pockets that they kept running into, prompting serious redesigns. An example of the former was the collapse of a huge underground construction site near Hollywood because the shoring was faulty. And then there was the corruption......everyone had their hand out although apparently not as bad as the Big Dig in Boston. Having said all that, the major reason why every new subway line, and not just LA's, is more expensive than the last one built is because we don't build them very often. You never realize the economies of scale that you can realize with housing or commercial bldgs. Imagine how expensive semiconductors would be if you could only produce 1000 per year. Its the same with subways. In addition, there is no one uniform way to build them.......like with manufactured housing or with a subdivision or with semiconductors. Each city has its own unique 'stamp'...........different subsoils with base rock occurring at varying depths; there are geographic obstacles that have to be maneuvered around like a river or lake; major infrastructure like utility lines, sewers exist under the roadways, and have to be relocated etc. Construction is a major, major hassle. Almost every subway line runs over budget and is very late coming on line. - SoCal is pretty decentralized, so unlike Washington, D.C. that has a cool "hub-n-spoke" subway system, L.A. county can't really do it that way. Where you are it is but LA is developing some decent densities. Here is a chart showing hyperdensites for major world cities including LA....LA ranks right up there: demographia.com Here's another one for just ave. densities but they screw up the figure for NYC by including too many exurban suburbs. According to this survey, I think LA ranks second in the US for population density. demographia.com - Carpool lanes don't really increase carpooling around here. Most of the time, they're just used by those who just happen to have more than one passenger in the car. That's true. - New roads are shunned because it is feared that this will attract new development, but the lack of development has helped drive up real estate prices because so many people want to move here anyway. Meanwhile, 1/3 of L.A. county residents are considering moving out because of traffic concerns, home prices, etc., but it's hard to say whether most of them will actually follow through on this. Every freeway built in S. CA since the 1960s was at overcapacity within a year of opening. Building freeways is not a solution to the traffic mess in S. CA. - Finally, the race for L.A. mayor is now between a corrupt incumbent and a challenger who might be a friend of illegal immigration. Talk about no-win situations. Ahhh.....that sounds like the place I use to know and hate. <g> ted