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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (126043)	12/2/2009 11:14:44 AM
From: Steve Lokness	Respond to of 543582

cosmicforce; I fly to Seattle but never LA. Even Seattle is not that much different Seattle this month will be served by light rail. Not sure of the exact date. That will take you from the airport to downtown Seattle. Its an example of what CAN (and I would argue must) happen with rapid transit. Obama could make this happen with a vision and pay for it with the money saved if he got out of Afghanistan. Just the lives saved from getting people out of cars would be huge. steve

To: cosmicforce who wrote (126043)	12/2/2009 11:47:50 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543582

<<<As someone who makes that trip (I used to do it a lot), it is not cost or time effective to fly with a family.>>> It is not completely a rational decision. There is lot of misconception and emotional involvement. Driving is appealing because you can have more control. Control freaks are more likely to drive. Air travel is the most expensive and least efficient but taking the train has less prestige value. Take the trip between midtown New York and downtown Philadelphia. Air travel makes no sense whatsoever. Amtrack is not all that cheap. Driving has a lot of appeal. You have much more control over everything, but two hours of driving in either direction is tiring. The most efficient way to go is taking the bus. There is a bus that leaves almost every hour in either direction. From the downtown bus station, you can virtually walk to any business destination in Philadelphia. But for a business person in business attire the unwanted stigma is almost impossible to overcome.

To: cosmicforce who wrote (126043)	12/3/2009 2:04:29 AM
From: Cogito	Respond to of 543582

>>As someone who makes that trip (I used to do it a lot), it is not cost or time effective to fly with a family. By the time you pack everyone into the car, add almost an hour to get to the airport 90 minutes early to deal with security, check luggage, walk to the gate, sit around, then do the flight, and find a rental car and recover luggage at the other end for a total of about 4 1/2 hours, I can be there in LA in about 5 hours with my own car. I've not flown between LA and the Bay Area since I was a kid traveling on my own to see an auntie. If fettered with security HSR will be almost as bad and it will take longer in transit.<< CF - I used to make the trip a lot, myself, but I did it solo. There was no way I was going to drive every time, even though it really did take quite a lot of time to fly, all told. Obviously, having the family along would change the equation. I doubt that the time wasted at each end would be the same for HSR. I'd expect to be able to show up fifteen minutes before departure at the most. One presently doesn't have to go through any kind of security to board a train here in California, and I don't know why HSR would be different. - Allen