Posted on 09/01/2018 11:33:14 AM PDT by Publius
Today it's far too dangerious… Unless your packing and willing to whack somebody it's the last place you want to go....
A neighbor has a giant junction box in the old fuse box location (which is total spaghetti looking mess inside) that connects things to a more modern circuit breaker box in a different basement room.
That house still has some tube and knob wiring (which is apparently quite reliable, unless you go around the house drilling holes in the walls.
Yep, it’s nuts.
As soon as I read “Annapolis to Tysons” I couldn’t help but to laugh, sorry.
Time of day is important but time of year as well. Next week you will be screwed.
And Tysons during Christmas? It could take you an hour to go 2 miles just to get on the Beltway.
And if it’s raining?
Forget about it.
I commute from Alex/Falls Church to Rockville. About 25 miles and it takes 45 min to an hour in the morning and afternoon.
Next week I’ll be screwed as well.
“As soon as I read ‘Annapolis to Tysons’ I couldn’t help but to laugh, sorry.”
If I were doing it more than three or four times a month, I’d cry. Lol.
I’m glad I haven’t had to set foot in one except the municipal one in years.
Sometimes the local airport has EAA and SCHAF events like the tri-plane and B17 rides.
My single daughter on the other side of town bought a house that was so old (ca 1900) that the wiring was added some time after the house was built. The fuse box went sideways after a year with shorted wires and she disconnected it and capped all those wires. She was unemployed at the time so she went to getting power from one 20 amp fuse that was on a separate connection on an outside wall. She was living with a refrigerator and a lamp. She decided she liked the $12 a month electric bill and has not changed from that for six years even though now she is working a good job with her own office and a pretty high salary She has battery LED lanterns for the occasional times when more light is necessary. Winter doesn’t get terribly cold here so she just dresses warmly and comes back to our house to sleep sometimes in the summer.
That’s rugged individualism...
My house had the wiring and box updated ~1960 AFAICT.
I’ve installed some GFI devices and grounded outlets, but it should get a full rewiring (there’s no Ethernet in the walls either! - horrors!)
That always comes to mind when I have to take a shuttle van from St. George, UT to McCarren Airport in Las Vegas. (leaving the car there would cost a small fortune.) Drives me nuts to have to depend upon someone else.
” Drives me nuts to have to depend upon someone else. “
-
And then you get on a plane?
Hmmmm!
.
Several comments:
1. Public transport does not work in the vast majority of the US because we do not have the population density of Europe or Asia. Europe is about the size of America.....east of the Mississippi (1/3rd of our land) and has 500 million so more than 1 and a half times our population. In addition to that, Americans like detached single family houses with yards. If a lot of people are going to have that, public transport is a nonstarter. If we chose to live packed in like sardines in apartment block towers (like Gaia Worshipers want) ie like Yurps’ live, then it would make sense. We do not choose that.
2. As more offices and companies relocate from city centers to suburbs, that obviates the need for expensive public transport to bring so many people from suburbs into city centers. Move the offices to the people - not vice versa.
3. Public transport also makes more sense in Europe because they tax the bejeezus out of gas. Its effectively 3 times the cost it is in America. Americans will never tolerate that and will immediately vote out of office any politician who tries it.
4 Americans also don’t want public transport because being individuals, we prefer to have more control over our own comings and goings. We are also not nearly as beholden therefore to public sector labor unions which can paralyze transport in Europe by going on strike. If the bus drivers or light rail drivers went on strike in most American cities, we wouldn’t even notice. We don’t use public transport anyway. Ergo, they have no real power over us. We like it that way.
Point taken, but I was referring to the intermediate step - plane leaves at 2 pm but I have to take the 8 am shuttle as the next one arrives too late (multiple stops). Take my car and I can leave at 11 or even noon and still make it. Night flights are even worse.
Academic now, as I drive almost everywhere, even for a three days trip, in order to avoid TSA and the cramped seats. If a relative dies and will be buried in short order, I bite the bullet, but for more occasional use, even long distance, it's now the auto just for the convenience.
It’s called FReedom because the greatest Nation ever put on God’s Green Earth allowed so many to afford their own personal transportation instead of having to wait in lines for someone else’s time schedule to move them like cattle...
Even in the mountains of West Virginia this was true, but the costs of these systems was huge.
These systems were largely driven by business wanting to get workers to work. Workers weren’t paid enough to buy a car and had to use these services and when the cost of a car was reduced and income crossed the cost line this destroyed public transportation.
Public transportation became political as well, where the old public transportation was worker focused; today’s public transportation is focused on the a population that largely doesn’t work. Requiring frequent stops to enable people to not walk to a more concentrated pick-up / drop off point slowing transit times.
In short, THEY (the elites) quit using it so it no longer mattered if it was useful to the population or not.
I live in a city that has buses large enough to hold eighty people running around town holding 5 people. Add political correctness and the buses run places no one wants to go and no one wants to leave AND routes are created to make politicians ‘look inclusive’... If public transportation REALLY didn't have a market, Uber would have failed the first day...
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