On Wed, 5 Mar 2003 03:24, you wrote: > Mark, > Having been below the poverty line and having worked my way up to > middle class, I have no liberal guilt. I am happy to talk to people > about how to resolve this but too many people have bought into the > socialist view that the reason they are poor is because someone else > took their share of the pie. Personal and individual decisions are a > major and possibly the most significant part of this equation. Been > there, done that. > > From what I saw, the personal auto is the great enabler of the poor. > It allows people to get to jobs that pay well but would be too far to > walk to or even bicycle to. Public transit makes a lot of sense in > high population density areas but it is not practical in rural areas. > Envision a usable public transit system in rural areas. Is this a once > a day bus or an hourly bus? How much would it cost? Who would pay for > it? Could it even be paid for (i.e. is there enough money anywhere to > build this system).
> td All I can say to your comments on rural public transport is Hogwash! I lived in Sweden in 1985. Their population density is low in country areas, yet there was quite good public transport available in medium sized provincial towns. I worked with people that travelled to work by PT at some centres in Sweden. Sweden is a Socialist led country , so welfare minded - but I disagree that everyone should be responsible for all their own welfare. There has to be Govt assistance to even up the living costs between city & country, otherwise the country will be more de-populated. Careful help with indrastructure, & sympathetic use of tax laws for disadvantaged areas can help build the prosperity so eventually decrease the reliance on this Govt help. This is one major failing of the current worldwide Govt push for less Govt intervention in local infrastructure. (This has been a real failure in Australia, where the Victorian govt which was previously running the buses in Melbourne at a controllable loss, sold the system to a Private Co, who then 'rationalised' services, lost heaps of money, then asked the Govt to bail them out!) regards Doug Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
