I still don't see EV's Replacing ICEs.

Please reread what was written slowly enough so you understand it.  
   
   When I used NIMBY I was talking about all those who will be objecting to do anything.  
     
    I at least have a possible solution for  the Bay Area problems.   
   It might not be the right one but I haven't heard yours yet.  
      Just so you have understand  my bias, we had light rail go n here  with exactly the same list of objections  hat have been outlined above.  
  You know something?   It's still not perfect.  This winter homeless people were getting on to ride  just to keep from freezing to death. 
       And now people are complaining it's too crowded.  
       The park& rides are filling up too soon. 
   But every car in one of those park & rides is one less on the freeways. Jamming things to a stand still 

    That sounds like a successful program doesn't it?  

In reply to frenchyd :

What about the trade offs?   How much does a freeway full of bumper to bumper cars cause?   

Most of the route of the train doesn't have any traffic. The portion they are building first is in the middle of nowhere. The traffic portions are the parts that are 20 years plus in the future, if they ever even get built. Explain to me how a train from Madera to Bakersfield is going to fix traffic in the Bay Area and LA? Traffic can be reduced much more cost effectively and much more quickly addressing traffic jam choke points. Sure it will have a cost, but it's a tiny fraction of the rail project, and it would happen in years Vs. decades.

  Plus personal grief.  I personally don't like sitting in bumper to bumper traffic.   So if some of that traffic had an alternate way of traveling?  What is that worth?   
    We are near 8 billion people on this earth.  When that number stops growing and goes the other direction  maybe it would be time to recalculate.  

None of that applies to to this solution. We have alternate ways of traveling NOW. They are called planes and trains. Planes do the same thing without the need to build rails in the sky. We can change capacity as needed with minimal changes to infrastructure. The project literally used Southwest Airlines as a guide for setting rates, the trains won't be cheaper for passengers. And the planes are can remove people from the roads today, not 20 years from now. Trains also exist, and travel the route today.

       
       I understand your comments about 71 years to "pay" for the system.  
   Have you played football?   
     A good quarterback will try a whole variety of approaches to get to the end zone.  
 

If you understood, you wouldn't have posted anything above, nor the failed football analogy. I like football. Big Niners fan. You know what the West Coast offense is, right? A variety of high percentage plays, designed to move the ball forward consistently. It was/is so effective that it's pretty much the standard offense for most teams now. You are backing the Hail Mary,  a low percentage desperation play, most likely to turn the ball over. It's a lot more exciting than a screen pass, but nowhere near as effective. 

  Dealing with NIMBY's. Environmentalists, bankers, lawyers, politicians, and just people.   Needs that sort of approach.  

You lost me. We need to throw the ball up for grabs for them? The NIMBY won't let us play in their backyard, so they are out. The environmentalist is worried we will tear up the field. The banker will try to secure the ball, so they are a good bet. The lawyer will sue you if you knock them over. The politician will try to change the rules to benefit themselves. That would be a strange game of football. A regular person would be best to find another game. 

     Don't try to be a carpenter. Just because you have a hammer not everything you see is a nail.  
 

Open another fortune cookie, what does that one say? 
 

In reply to frenchyd :

Please reread what was written slowly enough so you understand it.  
   
   When I used NIMBY I was talking about all those who will be objecting to do anything.  

 

That's not what NIMBY means. 
 

Not In My Back Yard.

It means someone who supports the idea, but doesn't want the negatives to affect them. They want a new train system, but they don't want it near their home. They just want the benefits, and near someone else's home.  If you oppose the concept, you can't be a NIMBY. 

     
    I at least have a possible solution for  the Bay Area problems.   
   It might not be the right one but I haven't heard yours yet.  
      Just so you have understand  my bias, we had light rail go n here  with exactly the same list of objections  hat have been outlined above.  
  You know something?   It's still not perfect.  This winter homeless people were getting on to ride  just to keep from freezing to death. 
       And now people are complaining it's too crowded.  
       The park& rides are filling up too soon. 
   But every car in one of those park & rides is one less on the freeways. Jamming things to a stand still 
 

You did see a few posts back that the Bay Area already has the BART system, right? 

  That sounds like a successful program doesn't it?  

Cars in parking lots. Of all the data available, you measure success by cars in parking lots. Not the cost to build and run, not ridership, but cars in parking lots.

Yes I'm well aware of the Bart system but you didn't seem to think that was the answer. 
    Nor is adding another 10 lanes on each direction of the freeway.   
   None of those makes access to affordable  housing.  
     If you can get 100  miles away from San Francisco  the land is very affordable.  High speed should mean you can get there in 30 minutes or so.  
    No each train wouldn't have to stop at each stop.  Have express trains run non stop to a given community.    That's what our buses do coming out to the lake.  But that's more than 50 minutes going through rush hour traffic. ( to get 23 miles away) 

      Yes you are darn right a filled up parking lot means the lite rail is successful. 100+ cars not  adding to freeway congestion?  
       Ridership numbers are meaningless.   If the train is filled during rush hour it's successful.   Off hours?  A few people riding?    So what?!?     Freeways in areas of high population will be clogged even with 10 more Lanes  going in each direction. That produces its own issues  such had how do you get to accidents in the middle of those 15 lanes? 
    
     I'm sure the air corridor between LA and SF  is about as contested as is safe.    Putting more people on bigger planes isn't really smart. Or affordable.  How close are both of those airports to their max capacity right now?  

  
       Finally that list of people who will object to anything. Yes that includes NIMBY's. As well as you apparently.  
       So politicians can try to keep their fingers in the dam   And do nothing.  Or fight through that group I listed and many more to do something. 
      
      

In reply to frenchyd :

I don't know why I'm bothering to respond to this. Maybe morbid curiosity? Here goes...

Yes I'm well aware of the Bart system but you didn't seem to think that was the answer. 

So building another, more expensive one is the answer? 

    Nor is adding another 10 lanes on each direction of the freeway.   
   None of those makes access to affordable  housing.  
     If you can get 100  miles away from San Francisco  the land is very affordable.  High speed should mean you can get there in 30 minutes or so.  

Two problems with that. One- it's not going 200MPH on the routes you are suggesting. Very unlikely to average even half that, but I'll give you an hour to get 100 miles. Two- again, the ticket price is going to be equivalent to airline tickets. Likely higher, as by law the ticket revenue needs to pay for the operation. On the very low end,  who  is going to pay $25k a year to commute to work? So much for the cheaper housing. 

 

No each train wouldn't have to stop at each stop.  Have express trains run non stop to a given community.    That's what our buses do coming out to the lake.  But that's more than 50 minutes going through rush hour traffic. ( to get 23 miles away) 

That may be part of the plan, but I haven't seen it/can't find it. I've seen repeatedly that "SF to LA could be as quick as 2.5 hours, but will be 3+ due to stops." 

      Yes you are darn right a filled up parking lot means the lite rail is successful. 100+ cars not  adding to freeway congestion?  
       Ridership numbers are meaningless.   If the train is filled during rush hour it's successful.   Off hours?  A few people riding?    So what?!?     Freeways in areas of high population will be clogged even with 10 more Lanes  going in each direction. That produces its own issues  such had how do you get to accidents in the middle of those 15 lanes? 
 

Again, you removed cars off the road. At what cost? I know it's not important to you, but it is important to the people who's opinions matter. Is this your system? 
 

North Star Line

We have that already. It's called BART, Amtrack Capitol Corridor, Muni, whatever LA calls theirs. Yours cost $317M, $450M in todays dollars. Or about 3% of the high speed rail project. 

     I'm sure the air corridor between LA and SF  is about as contested as is safe.    Putting more people on bigger planes isn't really smart. Or affordable.  How close are both of those airports to their max capacity right now?  

You are okay with slicing a swath through SF, Silicon Valley, and LA to fit a train, but you don't think the sky is big enough. Please explain how you calculated that. 

       Finally that list of people who will object to anything. Yes that includes NIMBY's. As well as you apparently.  
       So politicians can try to keep their fingers in the dam   And do nothing.  Or fight through that group I listed and many more to do something. 
 

Again with the all or nothing, binary choices. "Honey, my car broke. I'm selling the house and buying a Ferrari. No? Are you saying I can't have a car?!?"

My fault. Once you said that any good is worth any price, I knew there was no point in continuing the conversation. 
      
 

The easiest way to fix the Bay Area would be to tackle crime and prosecute criminals.  No one wants to ride any public transportation in big cities now because of rampant crime that goes unaddressed.  Again, none of this is really that difficult.

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

Too bad you don't have a suggestion or two of how the problem of crowded highways and unaffordable homes  can be addressed. 
   I'm sure if you focus on that  you'll come up with something. 
 I'll respect any idea. 

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

The easiest way to fix the Bay Area would be to tackle crime and prosecute criminals.  No one wants to ride any public transportation in big cities now because of rampant crime that goes unaddressed.  Again, none of this is really that difficult.

We were talking about how to reduce traffic on congested freeways  and how to  make it so people with average incomes  can find a place to live.  
 

I'm sure that's a problem we can discuss  but not sure how that fits on this subject.  

In reply to frenchyd :

Simple.  If you fix crime and clean up the place, people will use more public transportation reducing traffic and congestion.  It's easy.  

In reply to frenchyd :

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

Too bad you don't have a suggestion or two of how the problem of crowded highways and unaffordable homes  can be addressed. 
   I'm sure if you focus on that  you'll come up with something. 
 I'll respect any idea. 
 

Did you speed read past all of my previous suggestions in this tread? 
 

Expand the current normal speed rail service. Run some longer distance express runs with less stops. I'll add reduce crime as Anthony mentioned, as well as increase cleanliness. No one likes to step in human waste or a pool of blood. Ironically, I think the crime part is a wash for SF. Would you rather risk getting stabbed on the way to work or getting you windows broken while parked at work? 

Fix the highway choke points. You don't need to add a bunch of lanes, just keep the ones we have consistent. Merge points when lanes end wreck traffic. If you are going to have carpool lanes, use them for carpools. Not single driver vehicles just because the car has an electric motor. Not as express lanes for people who want to pay $15 to use the lane solo. 

Build bypass lanes on the highway going through towns where you can't exit. They do this temporarily for construction and it works amazing. Local traffic to the right, through traffic separated to the left. 
 

I'm not a fan of self driving cars, but a dedicated self driving car express lane sounds much more plausible than the high speed rail project. Same result for a fraction of the cost. 
 

Stricter driving tests and follow ups. There are lots of people on the road that really shouldn't be there. A small percentage of drivers cause most of the issues and congestion. Enforce the law on unlicensed drivers. 

Start putting up sight barriers around accidents like they do in Europe. A simple fender bender on the shoulder brings traffic to a halt while people rubberneck. 

The unaffordable homes is a trick question. I don't see a lot of empty homes in SF, so obviously enough people can afford them to keep them occupied. Want to live in SF (why?) but can't afford it? Get a better job or change your financial priorities. They are not going to build "affordable" housing in SF. It's a tiny city surrounded by water on three sides. But it's got some of the nicest weather on the planet and is beautiful geographically, so lots of people want to live there. Or did, before is started getting ruined. Maybe enough companies and residents will leave, making it more "affordable."

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

What is the cost of doing nothing?  
      
  Freeway congestion always spills over to residential streets and so there will be more fatalities , injuries,  and other issues. 
 On the freeways more road rage and anger leading to other problems.   
   Delivery trucks will be delayed as will service trucks and just people kept from getting to work on time or forced to leave early.   
      Average trip from home to work will grow to over an hour each way.   That's 10 hours a week.  52 weeks of the year or 520  hrs a year. A working year is  2080 hrs. So roughly 1/4 of work you do you won't be paid for.  
  Now multiply that times the millions  of people in the area around the major city. Suddenly we are talking about billions of dollars.  
  Add the added cost of traffic delays to goods and services. 
  Many more billions.   The health cost from asthma  and lung cancer etc.  nerves from the steady roar of traffic. 
     
  Finally wear and tear on cars, brakes and tires?  
  Seriously aren't we talking about hundreds of billions?  Each and every year?       
    Do nothing and it will continue to  increase .   
   Any remediation will cost more and more.    If flying cars suddenly allow you to jet home.  What are those costs?   Times millions of people?  
     Remember 80% of American's  live in urban areas. 

Boost_Crazy said:

In reply to frenchyd :

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

Too bad you don't have a suggestion or two of how the problem of crowded highways and unaffordable homes  can be addressed. 
   I'm sure if you focus on that  you'll come up with something. 
 I'll respect any idea. 
 

Did you speed read past all of my previous suggestions in this tread? 
 

Expand the current normal speed rail service. Run some longer distance express runs with less stops. I'll add reduce crime as Anthony mentioned, as well as increase cleanliness. No one likes to step in human waste or a pool of blood. Ironically, I think the crime part is a wash for SF. Would you rather risk getting stabbed on the way to work or getting you windows broken while parked at work? 

Fix the highway choke points. You don't need to add a bunch of lanes, just keep the ones we have consistent. Merge points when lanes end wreck traffic. If you are going to have carpool lanes, use them for carpools. Not single driver vehicles just because the car has an electric motor. Not as express lanes for people who want to pay $15 to use the lane solo. 

Build bypass lanes on the highway going through towns where you can't exit. They do this temporarily for construction and it works amazing. Local traffic to the right, through traffic separated to the left. 
 

I'm not a fan of self driving cars, but a dedicated self driving car express lane sounds much more plausible than the high speed rail project. Same result for a fraction of the cost. 
 

Stricter driving tests and follow ups. There are lots of people on the road that really shouldn't be there. A small percentage of drivers cause most of the issues and congestion. Enforce the law on unlicensed drivers. 

Start putting up sight barriers around accidents like they do in Europe. A simple fender bender on the shoulder brings traffic to a halt while people rubberneck. 

The unaffordable homes is a trick question. I don't see a lot of empty homes in SF, so obviously enough people can afford them to keep them occupied. Want to live in SF (why?) but can't afford it? Get a better job or change your financial priorities. They are not going to build "affordable" housing in SF. It's a tiny city surrounded by water on three sides. But it's got some of the nicest weather on the planet and is beautiful geographically, so lots of people want to live there. Or did, before is started getting ruined. Maybe enough companies and residents will leave, making it more "affordable."

Excellent  try.  Full marks.  
    Let me just clarify one bit.  
  I don't as thinking if you could get 100 miles from a city center in 30 minutes. You could live there, and commute into town to work.  

In reply to frenchyd :

You cant complain about other people "not wanting to do anything" then when the subject of crime comes up, your argument essentially boils down to, its too hard we cant do anything. Considering LAPD has about 10K officers, maybe thats not the biggest problem, maybe they should not do things like decriminalizing theft, and maybe the DA should actually prosecute criminals. They are literally doing the opposite and legalizing crime.

Boost_Crazy said:

In reply to frenchyd :

I don't know why I'm bothering to respond to this. Maybe morbid curiosity? Here goes...

Yes I'm well aware of the Bart system but you didn't seem to think that was the answer. 

So building another, more expensive one is the answer? 

    Nor is adding another 10 lanes on each direction of the freeway.   
   None of those makes access to affordable  housing.  
     If you can get 100  miles away from San Francisco  the land is very affordable.  High speed should mean you can get there in 30 minutes or so.  

Two problems with that. One- it's not going 200MPH on the routes you are suggesting. Very unlikely to average even half that, but I'll give you an hour to get 100 miles. Two- again, the ticket price is going to be equivalent to airline tickets. Likely higher, as by law the ticket revenue needs to pay for the operation. On the very low end,  who  is going to pay $25k a year to commute to work? So much for the cheaper housing. 

 

No each train wouldn't have to stop at each stop.  Have express trains run non stop to a given community.    That's what our buses do coming out to the lake.  But that's more than 50 minutes going through rush hour traffic. ( to get 23 miles away) 

That may be part of the plan, but I haven't seen it/can't find it. I've seen repeatedly that "SF to LA could be as quick as 2.5 hours, but will be 3+ due to stops." 

      Yes you are darn right a filled up parking lot means the lite rail is successful. 100+ cars not  adding to freeway congestion?  
       Ridership numbers are meaningless.   If the train is filled during rush hour it's successful.   Off hours?  A few people riding?    So what?!?     Freeways in areas of high population will be clogged even with 10 more Lanes  going in each direction. That produces its own issues  such had how do you get to accidents in the middle of those 15 lanes? 
 

Again, you removed cars off the road. At what cost? I know it's not important to you, but it is important to the people who's opinions matter. Is this your system? 
 

North Star Line

We have that already. It's called BART, Amtrack Capitol Corridor, Muni, whatever LA calls theirs. Yours cost $317M, $450M in todays dollars. Or about 3% of the high speed rail project. 

     I'm sure the air corridor between LA and SF  is about as contested as is safe.    Putting more people on bigger planes isn't really smart. Or affordable.  How close are both of those airports to their max capacity right now?  

  

You are okay with slicing a swath through SF, Silicon Valley, and LA to fit a train, but you don't think the sky is big enough. Please explain how you calculated that. 

       Finally that list of people who will object to anything. Yes that includes NIMBY's. As well as you apparently.  
       So politicians can try to keep their fingers in the dam   And do nothing.  Or fight through that group I listed and many more to do something. 
 

Again with the all or nothing, binary choices. "Honey, my car broke. I'm selling the house and buying a Ferrari. No? Are you saying I can't have a car?!?"

My fault. Once you said that any good is worth any price, I knew there was no point in continuing the conversation. 
      
 

      
      

All of your suggestions would improve things.   But there is a point of congestion  where if everything flows perfect. It still all comes to a halt. Most cities are long past that.  So surface streets get used and as those get congested people travel into neighborhoods.  Where kids play and people walk dogs.  
 I've seen them go rippping by at near freeway speeds trying to make up lost time. So have you Ill bet. 
   In my metro area 3,000new cars are added every year. We aren't even in the top 10 cities.  Those 3,000 cars need  360,000 additional feet  each year to deal with that level of traffic.  That's about 70 miles of road a year. 
   I suspect LA, NYC, etc would need many many multiples of that. 
     So we dig a tunnel underground and we've added a whole new demension 
    

In reply to frenchyd :

I just saw this one...

What is the cost of doing nothing?  
      
  Freeway congestion always spills over to residential streets and so there will be more fatalities , injuries,  and other issues. 
 On the freeways more road rage and anger leading to other problems.   
   Delivery trucks will be delayed as will service trucks and just people kept from getting to work on time or forced to leave early.   
      Average trip from home to work will grow to over an hour each way.   That's 10 hours a week.  52 weeks of the year or 520  hrs a year. A working year is  2080 hrs. So roughly 1/4 of work you do you won't be paid for.  
  Now multiply that times the millions  of people in the area around the major city. Suddenly we are talking about billions of dollars.  
  Add the added cost of traffic delays to goods and services. 
  Many more billions.   The health cost from asthma  and lung cancer etc.  nerves from the steady roar of traffic. 
     
  Finally wear and tear on cars, brakes and tires?  
  Seriously aren't we talking about hundreds of billions?  Each and every year?       
    Do nothing and it will continue to  increase .   
   Any remediation will cost more and more.    If flying cars suddenly allow you to jet home.  What are those costs?   Times millions of people?  
     Remember 80% of American's  live in urban areas. 
 

You are assuming that "doing something" will fix the above problems, and you are assuming that those problems exist in the first place. I'll forgive you, because I know it seems odd that anyone would spend billions of dollars to fix a problem that doesn't exist with a solution that won't make any difference. But we are taking about California. We do this all of the time.  This is a case where doing nothing is a better solution than the chosen one. You are hung up on Bay Area and LA traffic issues. They are not building the train in those places. Not in the foreseeable future, and probably never.  They are struggling to build it in the empty Central Valley. There is no path to completing the critical sections in SF and LA, those are decades out and for someone else to figure out. They are hoping the project will be "too expensive to fail" at that point. The Central Valley does not have the issues you mentioned above and does not need high speed rail. It's like breaking your arm and putting a cast on your leg. You did something, but it cost time and money without solving the problem. Doing nothing would be a better option. 

In reply to Opti :

In reply to frenchyd :

You cant complain about other people "not wanting to do anything" then when the subject of crime comes up, your argument essentially boils down to, its too hard we cant do anything. Considering LAPD has about 10K officers, maybe thats not the biggest problem, maybe they should not do things like decriminalizing theft, and maybe the DA should actually prosecute criminals. They are literally doing the opposite and legalizing crime.

I know this is already way off on a tangent, but it is directly related. I'll add that a big reason why people commute into cites is because they prefer to live in the suburbs with less crime. It's not just housing costs. There are some really expensive suburbs in the Bay Area that lots of people commute from. We don't have a shortage of police, we have an excess of criminals. We don't prosecute crime, which encourages more to do criminal acts. And the same criminals are being arrested over and over again, when they should already have been in jail. It would be like trying to build a building, tearing down any progress every week, and complaining that the problem is a lack of workers. Also, police officers and correctional officers are very well paid in CA. They also usually work long shifts and less than 5 days a week, so they rarely commute during rush hour. If we want to improve the quality of life for law abiding CA residents, putting the high speed rail money towards keeping criminals in jail would have a much bigger impact. 

In reply to frenchyd :

It's easy.  You are arguing for unlimited budgets to build public transportation and other green projects.  That means there is money to address crime too; it just isn't being addressed.  The substandard public transportation is made wholly unacceptable by crime and criminals.  The people agree; look at all the major cities in the US compared to Tokyo.  In Japan they have awesome public transportation and it is utilized by many.  This is an easy problem to fix and it is well within our technical and mental ability to fix.  Everyone knows why it doesn't get fixed either.  The same people that won't fix it are the same ones telling us we will all die from climate change in 10 years.  These people are stupid or evil, pick one.  These same people also want censorship, endless wars, etc.  I'm not going to support them and you shouldn't either.  
 

This thread already busted out with the WANT argument.  You want to know why we don't have these things already?  The people in charge don't WANT them. If we had clean and safe cities, good public transportation, good schools, good food, and plenty of housing, they'd have nothing to save us from and no one would donate to their fraudulent campaigns.  
 

Be honest about what you can plainly see and observe, and stop supporting the idiots destroying society.  
 

People are not going to use public transportation if being mugged, assaulted or raped is the expectation.  
 

I'm going to be killed by medicine, crime, evil law enforcement, politicians, a war or almost anything long before climate change gets me.

Public mass transit is great when it's high quality and in a community of high quality people.  Throw E36 M3 people into the mix and you have E36 M3 public transportation.  I'm not willing to die on mass transit to save the world from climate change.  Like I said we have lots of more immediate problems to address first.

Completely off tangent.  
    Do yourself a favor.  Ride with a police officer.  Then follow people they arrest.   Go through the booking process.  Go to court and notice the procescuters conviction record. ( most are well over 90%. )  

   How much tax dollars did that take?   
       Let's say the person broke a window that will cost $500 to repair.  But the public spent $10, 000 to arrest him,  jail him,  put him through trial., and send him to prison.  
     Is that really what you want to spend your tax dollars on?  

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to frenchyd :

It's easy.  You are arguing for unlimited budgets to build public transportation and other green projects.  That means there is money to address crime too; it just isn't being addressed.  The substandard public transportation is made wholly unacceptable by crime and criminals.  The people agree; look at all the major cities in the US compared to Tokyo.  In Japan they have awesome public transportation and it is utilized by many.  This is an easy problem to fix and it is well within our technical and mental ability to fix.  Everyone knows why it doesn't get fixed either.  The same people that won't fix it are the same ones telling us we will all die from climate change in 10 years.  These people are stupid or evil, pick one.  These same people also want censorship, endless wars, etc.  I'm not going to support them and you shouldn't either.  
 

This thread already busted out with the WANT argument.  You want to know why we don't have these things already?  The people in charge don't WANT them. If we had clean and safe cities, good public transportation, good schools, good food, and plenty of housing, they'd have nothing to save us from and no one would donate to their fraudulent campaigns.  
 

Be honest about what you can plainly see and observe, and stop supporting the idiots destroying society.  
 

People are not going to use public transportation if being mugged, assaulted or raped is the expectation.  
 

I'm going to be killed by medicine, crime, evil law enforcement, politicians, a war or almost anything long before climate change gets me.

Public mass transit is great when it's high quality and in a community of high quality people.  Throw E36 M3 people into the mix and you have E36 M3 public transportation.  I'm not willing to die on mass transit to save the world from climate change.  Like I said we have lots of more immediate problems to address first.

I certainly agree with your list of likely causes for your demise. Add a couple  auto accident,  some gang banger with a gun. Or some waco with a gun.  Or a heart attack on a golf course. ( seriously,  Golf is the sport with the highest fatality numbers, heart attacks /Strokes) 

      Who knows Maybe Elon Musk will have made Mars liveable before this planet gets  too ruined to live on. 
   As far as public transportation?   Flying is still Mostly OK.   Every train trip I've been on has been a very pleasant memory.  
      Finally. I haven't been elected to decide which public projects get funding.  Unless I miss my  guess, neither have you.      
   Before I jump to a conclusion like that I'd need to know a lot more then it's costs X and it's not on schedule. 
      

frenchyd said:

       Let's say the person broke a window that will cost $500 to repair.  But the public spent $10, 000 to arrest him,  jail him,  put him through trial., and send him to prison.  
     Is that really what you want to spend your tax dollars on?  

Yes, because they likely committed more than just that crime.........crime begets crime.

If for the purposes of this Casey Jones level of a train wreck thread we are purposing that walkable cities means fewer people commuting and that leads to less vehicle emissions than it's a factor.

In reply to frenchyd :

First you are starting from a false premise, that criminals are being arrested and then prosecuted. You should actually pay attention and you will see that this is largely not the case. If we pretend your premise is correct my answer is yes, I absolutely want the criminals prosecuted, even with your completely made up numbers. One of the reasons for punishment is deterrence.

If you disagree, look whats happening in places where they decriminalized theft under 950 dollars.

Part of your premise also supposes we can NOT spend the money to arrest him etc. Problem with that is we are are already paying for those things (outside of jail) like police, judges, and DAs salaries etc, unless you are saying we get rid of all police and judges.

In reply to frenchyd :

Completely off tangent.  
    Do yourself a favor.  Ride with a police officer.  Then follow people they arrest.   Go through the booking process.  Go to court and notice the procescuters conviction record. ( most are well over 90%. )  

   How much tax dollars did that take?   
       Let's say the person broke a window that will cost $500 to repair.  But the public spent $10, 000 to arrest him,  jail him,  put him through trial., and send him to prison.  
     Is that really what you want to spend your tax dollars on?  
 

I don't understand how you could be so misinformed on so many topics. If you just flipped a coin, you would be right 50% of the time. Curious how you went from "no expense spared for any result" on transportation to "let's work the numbers, doing nothing looks like the cheapest option" on crime. Here, I'll explain it in a way that will matter to you...

Every criminal behind bars is one less car that you have to deal with on your commute.

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

And we know the cars on his commute and all that personal grief are the real concern here.