This is a story I have told on this blog many times over. Basically it is about an experiment I conducted with myself as an argument for using public transportation. My brain was triggered by a news flash I read today on Breitbart which is: Pinkerton: The Greens Aren’t Just Coming for Your Gas-Powered Car—They’re Coming for All Cars.
The test came to me when I questioned how I would get to work if I didn’t have a car? I researched all forms of public transportation available to me from my home in Alsip, IL to my place of work in Tinley Park, IL. I found a way to do it by researching the bus schedules of two different companies: the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), and PACE a suburban transportation system. Uber was still fifty years away from reality, and cab companies existed mainly in large population centers like Chicago, and the Metropolitan Train Authority (MTA) trains were inconveniently too far away from me. The distance between my village and that of my work place was 9.2 miles, and by personal car it took twenty minutes to commute on a bad day. I devised a plan and set a goal to ride the buses to work. I left the house at 5:00 a.m. and finally arrived at work at 10:00 a.m. I bummed a ride home at the end of the day. Another five hour commute was not in my schedule. I am only one out of millions of people who commute to work by car because it is the most convenient way to do it.
The infrastructure necessary to link suburban areas to central cities like Chicago and to link the hundreds of smaller towns surrounding the city will be exorbitant in cost, take hundreds of years to accomplish, and the result would be impractical. So, when the Greens write articles like the one referenced above they are either completely clueless to what happens in the real world or they envision that everyone has molecular-transporter capability to move themselves from place to place. If you are not familiar with molecular-transport search your archives for Star Trek an ancient TV show. I would be the first to buy a transporter if it ever comes available. Unfortunately, it may not be available until the year 3023.
The Greens have shown me that they are totally unable to think in terms of practicality. Not only will we not be able to get rid of cars within the next hundred years, but they will continue to be powered by fossil fuels. The scenario they envision is looking into the past not into the future.
I solved my personal green commuting dilemma by riding a bicycle to work. Riding the bike safely to and from work was possible only between the months of March through September. In those months there was enough daylight to been seen by drivers, the temperatures were still civilized, and the probability of snow and ice on the road was still minimal. Risking my life to live Green was not a priority. I commuted by bicycle only because it enabled me to double up on time by giving me exercise as well as locomotion to the job. I often imagined everyone in the Chicago area riding bicycles to work. The visions streaming through my mind saw thousands of riders using the interstate highway system within the city. In other words it looked a lot like images I saw coming from China of people riding bicycles. Again, this vision was not forward thinking, but rather retrograding. The pictures coming out of China today are more typical of photos of morning traffic in Los Angeles, i.e. six lanes of traffic all going in the same direction bumper-to-bumper, and most likely moving at seventy miles an hour.
The greens have convinced me over and over again that their vision can only be achieved by returning to the age of dinosaurs where people relied on their feet to move about, ate greens for energy, lived only in warm climates during daylight.
Filed under: Biography, Conservative, Food | Tagged: A world without cars, Bicycle Commuting, Green Movement, Stupid is as Stupid Does |
I completely agree. The green people are the craziest people walking the face of the earth. They have no common sense at all and are afraid of their shadows.
I suppose to some extent it is how we have created our living spaces. The US, with abundant space, seems to have been expansive while building. Each house is much larger than a house anywhere else in the world. Even within the US, my guess is that a house in Texas will be larger than one in California or Illinois. Cars are bigger. People were expected to use cars even for crossing the road, like horses in cowboy stories. Fossil fuels were not expected to be an issue. Hence, public transport is not feasible except in a few big cities. I suppose we are where we are. One has to figure out where we go.
Back to the future