Ah yes, the lovelyness that is Highland Park…well we’ll see how much of the Crap-opolis remains in a few years, Home prices there are now avergaging $250,000+ now, so we should see a re-gentrification occur, for the much much better.
BTW if your an ex-Angelino, it might amuse you to know recently there was an article in a local paper about a side effect of the rocketing real estate and rental prices here. It focused on Echo Park, but it applies everywhere. The story was lamenting the loss of an art colony in Echo Park, they couldnt afford the rent anymore, the properties were getting too valuable. So there moving to Lincoln Heights on the other side of the LA river, in the same story was a side story about gangbangers in Venice be-itching that they couldnt afford rent anymore and were having to move away, awww, aint that sad!
It went on to say the same thing was occuring in Highland Park, Atwater Village, Echo Park, and Silverlake. Aww, aint that sad, the Homies are having to move to B.F. Egypt (San Berdue) after the landlords sold there rented cribs out from under them…awww!
Nor I, MC. Got one @ USC and the hood’s becoming downright upperclass. Next year out of the dorm & into 3BR apt 1 blk west of Vermont $2300/mo. They’re going to cram in there like sardines.[tdn]
One question…how did anyone notice the truckers were doing anything other than what they normally do, or the fwys were any different than any other day??? 25 years ago, wouldn’t have even merited a KNX report, much less a sigalert-just business as usual![%-)][%-)]
They laid them across the freeway on a diagonal in a “vee formation” and then spouted gibberish at anything with a microphone. KNX, KFWB and KCBS were blabbing updates every ten minutes in either metroplex…
One of the problems with the Energy Bill was that it gave a lot of money (billions) for fuel cell Hydrogen economy, when the facts are Hydrogen is not a fuel source, it is an energy CARRIER, like a third rail, a trolley wire, a battery, or a flywheel. It will always take more energy to produce the Hydrogen than you get out of it. What is needed is to literally force automakers to produce only Hybrids. Trucks and buses, also . Diesel switchers, yes, but mainline locomotives are fuel efficient by themselves now, way above anything a truck or bus or automobile does. If any of you have test driven a Hybrid (and Ford is staring to make a fine SUV), you’ll learn there are absolutely no disadvantage to this technology. But GM has always had a “not invented here” syndrom. Incidentally, when rating fuel efficiency of electric railways and electric urban transit the Feds add in a 5% for power line losses, but don’t count the fuel necessary to deliver the fuel to filling stations and other fuel locations. Also, they grossly undercount the normal average number of passengers on a light rail car (average 22 on a car with capacity of 220, 96 seated and 124 standing?), and overstimate on buses (15 on a bus with a capaicty of 40 seated and 22 standing?). The 22 number for light rail cars was applicable only in the old days of 40-foot streetcars with capacities not much more than buses, but the modern cars are double the length and much greater in capacity. And they also often use the 22 figure for subway cars and cummuter cars! Dave Klepper
That is some thing that we up in Canada fear is government intervention (taxes). I have been an advocate of giving tax breaks to people with hybrid cars. In Ontario right now we have idiots in government both provincially and federally who don’t have any more foresight then a lemming. You mention tax insentives and the governmnets have a stroke at the thought. They tried a truck blockade in Toronto about four years ago and all they did is get lip service from the governments and alot jestures and language that was not complimentary from those of us drivers who needed to get any where with three hours. The blockades don’t work. All we can do is pressure our deaf and dumb politcal leaders to give us some type of incentive to get us butts out of SUV’s and into more fuel efficient vehicles and god forbid we actually decide to walk any where.
where should i start. Fisrt off the trucks you so want to have inspected by the chp would pass inspection, You like so many are mislead into what the goverment and news teams want you to believe and not looking at the real facts. when you read the stories about all the trucks they found and grounded for saftey inspections when you look at the big picture they are the safest vehicles out there. what the news informs you is in 20 trucks ( broken down to what sells stories) had violations which required repairs before they could be moved. ( oh my these dangerouse trucks) out of these trucks inspected 2 needed major repairs and were put out of service. Now what i did was that in 20 trucks ( no mention of total trucks inspected which they conviently left of also and in 8 hours can total 500 trucks.) is what they choose the violation can be as simple as a burned out headlight or marker light. or turn signal bulb. all of these are moving violations and require a truck to be shut down til repaired. Oh my these terrorizing trucks with a light out. no other violation than that. ( call out the national gaurd we need help against these killers) and yes a few of these criminals even had log book violations ( once i forgot to make a entry ) God help us they are everywhere. mad truckers running the highways asleep. What am i getting at. I have even seen state troopers with headlights out did they give themselves a ticket ( hint no) did they give themselves and their employer a slip of paper putting the car out of service ( no) and how many people did you see last night with headlights out. not to mention the ones who never use a turn signal. So when they give you stats they are picking out a few trucks ( say 2 trucks in 100) and saying they found violations ( what violations everything is a violation) and they are dangerous. here is a test for you and everyone to do. go out and drive tonight or just go out on the street and look at the rear of every car. pick up truck and tell me out
A viable hydrogen car is decades away, a viable means of cost effecively mass producing hydrogen may never happen, all the $ being spend on “research” is just so GM can say, “we are working on the grand idea” and avoid doing anything outside of the box. Remember the EV1? GM’s wonder car? 2 billion big ones in research and it had a range as good as a luxery golf cart !
The thing about user fees is that none seems to realy know what it realy costs to run a truck on public roads. The truck operators only know what they can’t afford but have realy no conection to the cost of crews building and maintaning the roadway. Who realy knows if our government does our hiway maintanace in an efficient cost effective way?
To me there seems no doubt that a small car does far less ware on the road then a transport trailer, but exactly by how much???
What costs more in highway maintance, an auto transporter carrying 10 autos or 10 seperate autos driving on their own?
In pricipal I’m all for user fees, but in reality I’m also scared of it. Would it benefit me? or would it kill the economy? can it even be implimented? in theory it should work well though… on the long run.
Found it! OK - it is lopsided reasoning - just like our university. They charge you roughly $275 per year to park close to campus. But will give you a free bus pass.
The people that don’t have cars will have to buy a bus pass for $10 per mo or roughly $120 per year.
Scratching my head - but wouldn’t a free bus pass (which is what we did have) encourage people to park at home and ride the bus?
Same with hybrid cars - why tax them at the regular rate and then extra because they are hybrid. What is the point of buying them, unless you are really in love with their looks!
This is like reduced/no salt. Take out an ingredient and charge more for the item. Duh…
The numbers for how much highway wear a semi produces vs a car have been documented, although I don’t recall what they are. The difference is substantial.
As for the concept of taxing a hybrid extra - without knowing the numbers, I don’t know if it’s fair or not. But, consider that we are discussing making the truckers pay for the wear they produce.
If we apply that same concept to hybrids, then their taxes to run down the road should be equivilent to that of a similar gas guzzler. They are producing the same amount of wear! What they save is some gas (before taxes) and the environment.
That’s not to say that the extra tax is of an amount that meets that criteria (knowing governments, it’s too much), but it is something to think about.
Again, I would have to agree that bus pass policy is a bit unfair, but I’ll bet it works. It sends a strong message “KEEP YOUR [censored][censored] CARS AWAY FROM CAMPUS!!!” , and we’ll pay you to do it. Those without cars lack this “leverage” and pose no problem, so the powers that be say “Who cares?”
Back to the hybrids, I’m guesing that the tax in question was placed on the purchase of the car. This is a silly place to put a tax!!! The proper place to tax this would be at annual tab renewal, but road repair may not be where those fees are directed. Every state is different. Gasoline taxes usually flow directly to roads, licensing fees may not. It is also possible that the tax was additional licensing fee, which went straight to the bottom line of the purchase.
California has long been a believer in “Robbing Peter to pay Paul” in their battle of road quality vs air quality and other things, sorry Vic. Nebraska is literally more up front about it, and is just trying to be fiscally responsible, even if it seems misguided.
Well, the way I look at it, the trucks block traffic whether or not they do it intentionally or not. So, bottom line, let them cry all they want, and the shippers will SHIP BY RAIL!