I agree with you completely. We really need to be pointing funding, especially gas tax type funding, towards mass transit, like the Europeans have been doing forever. Best way to reduce gas prices? Find a way to reduce demand.

Mass transit does well in urban areas, and most of Western Europe, Japan, Korea and the like are urban. But in the US, with our massive investment in suburbs, we are literally not built for large, efficient mass transit systems. It's something that will take a huge change in the way many of us live for pervasive mass transit to be cost effective. It'll be a big disruption. And there's the perception that mass transit is for the poor.

I work with a team that has members from NJ, MD, and VA. We have to deal wtih customers all over the DC/MD/VA area, and we work from at least four different drop-in offices as well as home. None of us live within half an hour of the others (with one exception, and that's halfway to West Virginia). Mass transit is great if we have to get to downtown DC from inside the Beltway, but everywhere else, we drive.

How can a job like mine, with me in Baltimore, Rockville and McLean all in one day, be accomodated at any reasonable cost by mass transit? Best thing I can do is to have a car with a good mileage rating. Car sharing services may be a reasonable option at times, but not during busy seasons.

I think we need to change our lifestyles, not just hope that infrastructure will come to us in the suburbs in any useful way, because it won't. The good news is, my company encourages work from home, so I drive less these days and we use less office space and thus less energy. But I'm still commuting to customer sites a few times a week. That is the last hurdle for me, and solving it is tough.

I'm not expecting suburbs to suddenly get a huge mass transit system, but just connecting urban centers would be nice. And maybe a better bus system for people in the suburbs to get to the urban centers.

I'm sure it's coming eventually, but it's never good to see steps in the wrong direction.

I dunno, Jolly. I live in the suburbs, I love the quality of life.... But how long can it last? Suburbia is dependent on the multi-car family at this point, and it's a real puzzle how to change that model. I think it's one of the issues that will surprise us over the next decade or so.

I think the standard of living is going to have to go far down over time, but that is going to happen everywhere, urban, suburban, and rural alike. While gathering closer to urban centers will happen, I think we'll see a resurgence of small businesses that support local folks in the cities which are far from the big ones. More small movie theaters, local bars and social areas. Telecommuting will become incredibly popular, I would expect many companies to start encouraging that more and more, and for salaries to go down in exchange. When that happens, we'll find less multi-car (and more zero-car) families, and there will be a greater need for other means of transportation between cities, and not just the major ones. For myself, in eastern Pennsylvania, it would mean a better way to get down to Philadelphia, or over to NYC.

Agreed on the urban sprawl. I've brought up several times the Urban Development Boundary vote in the past few days/weeks here and everyone except developers/Lowes/county commissioners agreed that we would be dooming South Florida if we moved it. Now we have more of this to look forward to:

Good article in The SunPost: SNORKELING AT LOWE’S. It tells you what will happen if they vote to override. And this morning they did over ride the Mayor's veto against the advice of the state, county, urban planners, zoners, environmental people, water management people, and pretty much everyone else.

We need to start somewhere and cutting funding for something that is just getting off it's feet is not the way to go. Raising prices can help a little but you can only raise it so much. It's a catch 22 where if you don't raise prices you can't pay for the service you offer but if you do you price those services outside the affordability of those who primarily use the service. More links below.

These cover the main points:
http://www.transitmiami.com/2008/04/29/miamis-urban-development-boundary...
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/04/el-nuevo-herald-columnist-daniel-...
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/04/timecnn-on-lowes-store-by.html
http://criticalmiami.com/2008/05/01/county-commission-sells-out-everglad...

These are just side notes:
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/05/mining-for-gems-in-news-of-awfull...
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/05/dissecting-letter-to-miami-herald...
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/05/thats-way-it-works-by-gimleteye.h...
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/05/seijas-on-urban-development-bound...
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/05/question-could-unreformable-major...
http://www.transitmiami.com/2008/04/30/postscript-on-udb-vote/
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/04/boycott-lowes-and-i-got-to-get-mi...

If you are curious on fare here is the fare information page. What do you pay for yours up there?

Can't the same logic be applied to car owners? What entitles car owners money from rail users for maintaining infrastructure (highways, roads, bridges, etc) that we can no longer keep expanding? We pay for the tickets and services to upkeep it as well. We can not keep expanding roads here. It's either rail or some other solution I haven't thought of.

That isn't the case here. The problem is that we elect personable people who really aren't very bright. They look at the traffic on our roads, and conclude that the problem is that the roads are too small. So they make them wider, or build new ones. And the result? Traffic gets WORSE.

You see, the problem isn't that the roads are too narrow, or that we don't have enough of them; the problem is that there are too many cars on them.

Now, if our elected officials had any intelligence at all were paying attention, they would study the results of their past actions:

• widening highways: worse traffic.
• double tracking Tri-Rail: increased ridership
• adding "alert" signs to I-95; increased traffic delays as drivers slow down to read signs
• adding trains to Tri-Rail: increased ridership

To me, that says that a vote against trains is a vote against the voters. But then, I'm not an idiot politician elected official.

The funding that would be used for reducing traffic, congestion, pollution, financial strain, and other things is going to increasing roads in size, length, additional roads and in many cases sound barriers. I95, state road 826 (Palmetto Expressway) have all been expanded to the maximum to the border of people's backyards. In response they had to spend a metric ton of money on sound barriers. This money could have gone to expanding our current Metrorail to provide a quicker, cleaner, quieter, and cheaper transportation system for the majority of locals here. Those who want to keep using their cars get the benefit mentioned above of less traffic and congestion, lower price in gas due to less demand, and whatever other benefits you can think of.

In addition do you know where the county is going to spend a good chunk tri-rail funding? A brand new Florida Marlin's stadium. Instead of funding something that will improve the lives of almost everyone in the tri-county area we are building a f*cking baseball stadium. At least it has a retractable roof.

This isn't sustainable. You can not keep building roads. What happens when the car as we know it is gone? We *will* run out of oil one day and we will have to change the way things work. Might as well go with a tried and true system till we can come up something better. I see the rail system possibilities here in South Florida as the only solution. Even taking electric vehicles into account for the fuel we still have the issue of price, traffic, congestion, infrastructure, road expansion, maintenance, etc. We will still have about the same amount of problems even if we moved away from gas to diesel, bio-diesel, electric, etc. Apply the seven generation rule to this. What impact will this decision have on the lives of people seven generations from us? A balanced solution of rail for the majority of the people who do not need a car, and the current road and highway system is all we can really do for now.

I thought that South Florida was primarily traversed by fanboat?

But I think this makes sense. Clearly they blew a ton of money maintaining those cloaking trains.

There's also some sort of cost-benefit analysis improvements need to meet. I'm not sure what it is, but I know Minneapolis is having trouble getting light rail improvements to meet the criteria.

You got to screw someone over. Might as well be people who a.) won't know about it, b.) have no say in it, c.) everyone locally can agree on since it won't affect them, d.) if the system was expanded tourist will use it in conjunction with the Metrorail which is already tourist heavy. Not that I support it but it makes sense as a political move in my head.