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From: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Commuting
Message-ID: <12232682202.38.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Thu, 21-Aug-86 19:30:16 EDT
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Posted: Thu Aug 21 19:30:16 1986
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To: Hank.Walker@UNH.CS.CMU.EDU

  One of the main reasons that roads are so clogged during rush hour
is that few people live within walking distance from where they work.
Few people CAN live within walking distance from where they work,
thanks to zoning laws.  I can understand not wanting a factory next
door to one's house (not that one should have the power to prevent
it), but what line of reasoning says there shouldn't be office
buildings, schools, churches, or grocery stores near one's house?
  Where I live there is actually a taxpayer subsidized minibus system
intended primarily for old people to go shopping!  If we didn't have
zoning laws they would live within easy walking distance of the stores
and they wouldn't need subsidized bus service.
  The main problem with urban bus service is that it is almost always
run by the government.  Government has no incentive to make it
comfortable or reliable.  Bus routing depends more on political
pressure groups than on demand for service.
  This is not to say that bus service is now a lucrative field for
private enterprise.  Once a person has bought a car and learned to
drive and payed all the various licensing fees and special taxes, he
is not likely to commute some other way.  Especially since buses are
slowed down by private cars to the same extent as other private cars
are, so there is no gain in speed.  (Special lanes just for carpools
and buses are a promising innovation in some areas.)
                                                              ...Keith

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