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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elsewhere who wrote (171188)	9/23/2005 11:57:55 AM
From: Elsewhere	Respond to of 281500

Offer of buses fell between the cracks By Andrew Martin and Andrew Zajac Washington Bureau Chicago Tribune, September 23, 2005 chicagotribune.com news.yahoo.com Two days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, as images of devastation along the Gulf Coast and despair in New Orleans flickered across television screens, the head of one of the nation's largest bus associations repeatedly called federal disaster officials to offer help. Peter Pantuso of the American Bus Association said he spent much of the day on Wednesday, Aug. 31, trying to find someone at the Federal Emergency Management Agency who could tell him how many buses were needed for an evacuation, where they should be sent and who was overseeing the effort. "We never talked directly to FEMA or got a call back from them," Pantuso said. Pantuso, whose members include some of the nation's largest motor coach companies, including Greyhound and Coach USA, eventually learned that the job of extracting tens of thousands of residents from flooded New Orleans wasn't being handled by FEMA at all. Instead the agency had farmed the work out to a trucking logistics firm, Landstar Express America, which in turn hired a limousine company, which in turn engaged a travel management company. ...

To: Elsewhere who wrote (171188)	9/23/2005 3:55:46 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Jochen, if the private operator charged $10,000 per vehicle, there would have been no traffic jams. If they charged $1,000 a gallon for fuel if people run out there would be few who run out of fuel. With no traffic jams, there would be few running out of fuel. Those who really want to get out cheaply would do so before the price rose as the hurricane neared. The price could be lowered sufficiently to keep the freeways full. With high prices, more people would share transport, take a bus, or stay in their reinforced concrete bunker if they have one, leaving room for those who prefer to take their SUV on their own. Low-price lanes could be for traffic flowing at 160 kph, 1 metre apart, with proximity controllers and auto-braking/accelerating and steering. That would be only in the fast lane, or all lanes if most cars were fitted with the equipment. With roads priced correctly for demand, people would have incentive to buy such equipment to enjoy fast, safe, convenient, cheap travel. Your boe calculation is for Kremlin-style central planning and control with no imagination on how traffic flows can be improved. With all that cash flowing in, the road owners would have incentive to improve service by building more roads so more people want to use their roads and travel more. People would move to cities where traffic flows are excellent and prices low. Businesses would relocate so their employees can get to work and the companies can function more effectively with suppliers having lower costs and distribution being cheaper and faster. Right now, high tolls should be applied by the emergency services people and the funds used to protect those left behind. Some lanes could be set aside for vehicles with lots of people in them and those lanes charged at higher toll rates. That would get people to leave their personal SUV in the garage in Galveston and get a lift with a neighbour. The toll would need to be $50,000 as they presumably want to save their SUV too, though they could park it in Houston on high ground in a parking building and get a ride from there. Imagine how much money could be collected from those swarms of people stuck on the freeways if they could be given a free run out of there. In normal times, tolls would rationalize road transport. We do that with tomatoes [charge what the market will bear based on supply and demand]. People who don't want to pay the price eat something else when they are too expensive. Mqurice