[LINK] 'Smart' cars as fuel-efficient as hybrids

[Jan Whitaker]

At 10:02 PM 15/05/2007, Eleanor Lister wrote:
>i know some folk will say that they live in places that never will have
>much public transport, or they need to be able to go to various places
>by some whimsical route, so clean up their cars, let them drive .... but
>keep them out of cities, have carparks at the transport nexii around the
>edges of the cities.

I'm with you on this, EL. I just sent an email to my MLC in Victoria 
about our line. And Paul Mees at Melbourne Uni just said tonight on 
TV that the rail lines stopped being extended in the 1930s!! That is 
disgraceful! My point to my member was that the petrol price increase 
has made the train more attractive -- but there is NO more parking at 
any local station. Our bus services are woeful, adding at least 30 
minutes to get to the station, which is only a 10 minute drive for 
me, including parking and walking a short distance, increasing a 1 
hour+ commute to at least 1.5 hours. There is a limit on extra 
services that can be added because of the merging of three lines onto 
one tunnel line PLUS VLine from the Gippsland regional areas. We are 
to get a third railline from Dandenong in a few years <yawn>.

And your point about the various places is real. Melbourne is 
hub/spoke -- all lines lead to Melbourne. To get to a different part 
of compass is nearly impossible by train.

Now, coming from a place that had NO trains/light rail, just busses 
that were even worse than useless, this is heaven. But if you have to 
live in the outer burbs because that's all you can afford, the 
answers are few and far between.

to put it back on topic for link, did anyone else hear Phil Burgess 
of Telstra saying they will have a 45Mb video link service? Gee, as 
if that level of resolution is at all required. 256kb to 512kb is 
just fine for most communication. He's just a snob. 45Mb is near 
broadcast quality. What an ASSS!!!! Just their way of overcharging 
for unnecessary bandwidth. I guess Telstra shareholders would be 
proud. He's a lousy technologist. Oh, and it won't reduce meetings. 
Australia is in love with jets. I've never seen so much commuting for 
wasteful meetings as I see here. One I was involved in recently flew 
all but 2 attendees of a group of about 9 to Sydney. One third were 
based in Canberra as far as I know, maybe more.

Jan


Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
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