[geeks] Taxes

[Sandwich Maker]

" Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 14:21:19 -0400
" From: Phil Stracchino <alaric at metrocast.net>
" 
" Sandwich Maker wrote:
" > " From: Phil Stracchino <alaric at metrocast.net>
" > " 
" > " Do you burn more fuel crawling to your workplace through near-gridlocked 
" > " city traffic, or driving 50% further on less-loaded and relatively 
" > " free-flowing roads?
" > 
" > but city density does support mass transit and foot traffic as valid
" > commutation methods.  in nyc, car owners are the freaks.  otoh when
" > cabbies went on strike gridlock was cut by half...
" 
" So does a smallish town.
" 
" Background:  I used to live in one of the UK's New Towns.  They were 
" founded after WW2, about 35-40 miles out in a ring around what was then 
" the outer edge of London, leaving a sizeable "green belt" in between. 
" []
" At peak traffic times, there was a bus every 7.5 minutes on all 
" routes.  At the time we moved there, around 1969, we were on the edge of 
" town; by the time we left in 1980, the edge had moved out as far again. 
"   It was ten minutes to the town center on my bicycle, and I could walk 
" to the industrial area from home in about half an hour.
" 
" > in a lot of ways that's exactly what i have in this city.  there's no
" > place i'd consider safe to leave my bike though.
" 
" Stevenage was very bike-friendly, with a separate network of cycleways 
" and underpasses to avoid the need for bicycle traffic to use or cross 
" major roads

my city is about the size of your town, but it has little of that.  no
bike friendliness and only a skeletal bus system.  we do happen to be
on one of the rail lines out of boston.  i can only wish we had your
kind of infrastructure here.

i was fascinated to see, when they thoroughly dug up and repaved water
st. a few years ago, cobblestones and trolley tracks!  about 2 feet
down...  removed now.

what brought me up here was at&t's largest factory in the country and
new england's largest under a single roof; they employed some 12000 in
2 full shifts and part of a third in the late '80s.  closed and sold
when lucent went to their 'brilliant' all-service business model,
still mostly empty with only a few small business in there.  the local
economy hasn't yet completely recovered from that.

what action there is is mostly in the part that wasn't blighted by
'60s urban 'renewal'.	:^/
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh at an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought