From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Feb 12 2003 - 19:36:14 MST
--- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> wrote:
> ML> Successfully used public mass transit is a
> ML> paramount sign of a mature and ingrained socialist society.
>
> DB> I dunno about that, but it sure makes life in Melbourne
> considerably
> DB> more comfortable and pleasant than it would be otherwise. New
> York,
> DB> too, for that matter.
>
> Yep, I think Mike's case is a bit overstated. There can be, and has
> been, successful private profit-making mass transit. One I remember,
> for example, is the private bus system that Las Vegas had until it
> was taken over by force and replaced with a government system. It
> was sold
> to the public as a way to make the system cheaper and ensure that it
> would cover outlying areas that the successful private system didn't.
> It does in fact now cover more areas than the private system did, but
> it is now more expensive and far less reliable.
I suppose I should qualify my remarks, though I see that I DID say
"public", as in 'publicly owned'. Privately owned mass transit can and
does make a profit in many markets. I happen to work for one: Vermont
Transit, which is currently the only profitable unit in Greyhound (the
profit taking may spread more if Amtrack is ever let die like it
should).
In fact, Vermont Transit, back in the 1920's, ran a competetive
publicly owned trolley service into the ground. They celebrated by
torching the last trolley in Burlington in a public bonfire....
The company does, though, receive subsidies from state and federal
governments, though these subsidies are ONLY for things that the state
wishes to mandate that we do, i.e. they pay for wheelchair lifts on the
buses, and they pay for extra buses to run unprofitable routes that the
state wants us to operate. We didn't ask for the money, but we did
insist on it when the gummint wanted us to do unprofitable things.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Pacifists are Objectively Pro-Fascist." - George Orwell
"Treason doth never Prosper. What is the Reason?
For if it Prosper, none Dare call it Treason..." - Ovid
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