[extropy-chat] Psychology of investments in infrastructure

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jun 19, 2006, at 8:48 PM, spike wrote:

>> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Samantha Atkins
> ...
>>
>> If we had a decent mass transit system out here in the south bay I
>> would use it more often.  Caltrain is better than nothing but by the
>> time I have fought traffic to park at the nearest station I would be
>> over halfway to work.    The buses are too few to take to the station
>> for me...
>
> Ja, we don't have the population densities required to make mass  
> transit
> viable here.  The only way we could really make it go is to eliminate
> parking lots everywhere.  If we put our minds to it, we can force  
> the people
> to serve mass transit.
>

As I look out my window into my neighbor's kitchen I very much doubt  
lack of population density is a problem.

>
>> Well you did claim to be getting on with life yet you are advising
>> not building various things because you fear terrorism.  Something
>> seem a bit off. - samantha
>
> Something is a bit on.  My life goes on.  In fact life for me is  
> better now
> than at any time in the past.
>
> I am advocating not building subways because they are too likely to  
> go bust,
> both because of inconvenience and theoretical terrorism that has never
> happened.  One could argue that this is an indirect fear of  
> terrorism: it is
> a fear of economic failure because of public fear of terrorism.

You did bring up terrorism first as your reason.
>
> Still, subways are a bad bet.  Even our local mass transit doesn't  
> pay for
> itself, after all we have invested.

That is partially on purpose imho.

> Samantha, you and I have seen our very
> expensive light rail go by, holding up blocks of car traffic, with two
> people aboard, one of which is the guy operating the train.  If it  
> were a
> private business it would have folded a long time ago.  So why do  
> we still
> have it?  Why do we need it?  Are we still betting on them becoming  
> viable
> at some indefinite future time?

I have rarely seen it that underutilized.  We spend many tens of  
billions of dollars every year of lost productivity sitting in a box  
on wheels driving to and from work.   We spend much more than that on  
be box and the liquid gold that fuels it.  Clearly this is sub- 
optimal to say the least.

- samantha