[Leica] Re: Small cars

[don.dory at gmail.com (Don Dory)]

Peter,
I am remembering some work studies so the gist is what is important.  If I
recall correctly, without face time and/or the fear of management most
people become mostly unproductive if they work at home.  Again, this is a
study of large numbers so individual stories of dedication don't change the
meaning.  However, satellite offices might make sense.

The real issue is that when transportation costs were relatively small,
collectively we chose where we would live and work by different rules than
we would have in light of much higher transportation costs.  I grew up in a
suburb that existed because in 1900 an enterprising person ran a rail spur
twenty miles out from Kansas City and sold lots based on the clean air and
country living while still being only a few minutes from work.  Now they are
trying to rebuild that rail line that they removed in the forties as the
commute by car can become over an hour.

Of course the good news for me is that SWMBO forced me to buy a house close
in and now that nobody wants to spend three hours in their car the dirt I
live on is worth an insane amount of money.

Don
don.dory@gmail.com


On 4/27/06, Peter Dzwig <pdzwig@summaventures.com> wrote:
>
> If I can chip in my few pennies from over here...
>
> We suffer from a similar problem to you, albeit on a smaller scale. The
> problem
> is the commute. Most of our domestic petrol/gasoline consumption goes on
> making
> commutes into large cities. One solution is obviously public transport,
> but
> government won't invest in good enough train systems and other mass
> transit
> systems. What we actually need to do is address the perceived need for the
> commute. Today, technically we don't actually NEED a lot of the commute.
> Many
> people are going into cities to perform tasks that could equally well be
> performed from home. With communications as they are becoming, why SHOULD
> we
> locate businesses in the metropolises? The reasons that they were located
> are
> purely historical and have little to do with the way that much business is
> or
> could be connected today.
>
> Peter Dzwig
>
>
>
> Marc James Small wrote:
>
> > At 09:51 PM 4/26/06 -0400, Don Dory wrote:
> >
> >
> >>But with gas hitting $3 in the U.S. people might change.  Possibly try
> mass
> >>transit.
> >
> >
> > Mass transit is simply not an option for 70% or more of the population,
> as
> > an increasing number of folks in the US live in small towns or in the
> far
> > outer suburbs -- can you imagine the cost to drive the DC Metro out to,
> > say, Clarke County?  Mass transit already works for those living in the
> > inner reaches of the large metro areas, but we lack the infrastructure
> to
> > see use increase dramatically.
> >
> > I'd slap a $5 a gallon tax on gasoline imported from outside the US,
> open
> > ANWR, and start pumping natural gas from the Florida coastal
> waters.  The
> > money from the new tax should go to set up processing plants for shale
> oil
> > -- the US has raw reserves of shale oil equivalent to something on the
> > order of ten times the proven petroleum reserves.
> >
> > I drive a manual '84 Audi 4000S which gets 40mpg on the highway and
> 30mpg
> > around town.  My wife has a straight-drive Hyundai Elentra which does
> > almost as well.  I am looking for a late 1950's VW Bus to use to haul my
> > gear when I go camping, but there is no rush on that:  my wife and I can
> > lug it all in both cars now.
> >
> > Marc
> >
> >
> >
> > msmall@aya.yale.edu
> > Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
>
>
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