Monday, August 22, 2005

You worried about the Patriot Act? I'm scared of Metro!

I know that all you libs are worried that George Bush himself is going to find out that you borrowed books at the library on indoor grow systems (we all know you aren't growing tomatoes) and the Kama Sutra. Me, I'm worried that Metro is psychologically profiling all of us in order to figure out the best way to get us out of our cars!

Travel Behavior Barriers and Benefits Research
Community-based social marketing (CBSM) stresses direct contact with people at the community level to promote behavioral change. It has been demonstrated that this approach can produce higher levels of success per contact than traditional media advertising.
This is similar to the "Mafia approach." Metro goons will approach you with an "offer you can't refuse." Namely, they will screw up the freeway so bad that sitting next to the heroin addict on the bus will seem like a viable alternative.

PROBLEM: THREE-FOURTHS OF AMERICANS DRIVE ALONE.
The same data show that in Oregon only 12 percent of all travelers making trips
to or from work carpooled, 4.2 percent used public transportation, 3.6 percent
walked, 1.9 percent used a motorcycle or bike...
Solution: spend 95% of the transportation budget on 9.7% of the population. Morons. If you were asked what your daily commute problem was, what would you say? That you drive alone or that traffic moves at 20mph? Just another disconnect between the "planners" and ruling elites and Joe and Jane Citizen.

The most extreme motivational technique to encourage people to use transit services was in Belgium (7f ). A mayor chose to close a major "ring-way" (i.e. beltway) instead of spending money to expand and repair it. After closing the major ringway he announced that all public transportation was free. This actioimproved thehe use of public transportation by 800%, and the mayor felt that the money used to support free public transportation was less expensive than repairing and expanding the roadways.
Every public official in Portland wants that guys autograph. This is what they would do if they thought that they could get away with it.

Suggestions made by participants for improving the communication about alternative
travel modes included:

*Have newspapers do feature stories on the options

* Educate school children who will spread the word to parents
Like you need to convince the Fishwrapper to push your socialist agenda. They do that voluntarily. As for indoctrinating our kids, you wonder why charter schools are so popular...

Side note: I always take surveys, polls, etc. Always. I make my opinion count. God help Metro if I am ever selected to sit in on one of these focus groups. This whole study is based on results of questions they have asked to citizens. (probably selected at random... from the Pearl District)

Barriers and Benefits to Non-SOV Alternative Travel Modes

Employer provided free parking
Expect Metro to attempt a fee for parking rule for all employers or to somehow bully employers into providing less parking or "reduced fare" parking for carpoolers.

Lack of freedom to come and go
Metro says that public transit is less affected by congestion (metro/ODOT created) and lack of parking (metro/ODOT dream).

Inflexibility of public transportation
Metro says public transit is "generally reliable and predictable." Metro has never actually used the bus.

I'm not going to list all the "benefits" of public transportation but most of the rest involve avoiding the (metro/ODOT created) traffic problems.

As transit-oriented development and lifestyles more in tune with a denser urban
form become more common, people will (re) discover the opportunities afforded
by greater (though not necessarily complete) dependence on public transportation.
You sick bastards. I'm contemplating running my car in the driveway while I write this right now. Do you understand what these sick people are doing? They create "transit-oriendevelopmentment" (read: use your tax dollars to build stuff) in order to make you modependentdant" on government transportation.

Urban Planners (we'll just call them "Satan" for short) design neighborhoobusinessness districts, and even whole cities to be unfriendly to cars. Their goal is "behavior modification." Your behavior. They want to make it too expensive, too uncomfortable, inconvenientiant to own your own car so that you will have to rely on government to supply you with transportation.




6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The person who launched Metro is the same person that launched The Oregon Garden. If we are lucky they might come to a similar end.

Daniel said...

We can only hope...

Of course, government is under the "never say die" provisio. As long as they are spending your money they don't care what kind of loss they operate at. They just won't fund the jails.

Anonymous said...

Well, I for one got sick of riding on the bus and train. I was riding that for 5 years and then that snow storm happned 2 years ago. I was unable to get to work for 3 days and had to eat 2 of the days due to the fact that I was not working for the Sisters of Hawthorne and getting paid for not working. The other big reason that I went and bought a car was the fact that instead of a 2.5 hour commute each way, now I am down to about a half an hour.

I am Coyote said...

Did you notice that Tom Cox will be running for a Metro seat.

At least that is where I am putting my money.

Someone dropped me a line over on NWR and two and two makes Metro run against McClain.

Anonymous said...

I work for the state. I routinely drive a large, four door ODOT (yes ODOT) vehicle all around the state alone. I am very seldom asked to transport things/people along the way. I could, and have, done the same work over the telephone, but the telephone thing saves too much money and would destroy our budget the next time around. I am required to put at least 1,000 miles per month on my assigned vehicle. I usually put on much more, driving alone, burning fossil fuels for 70 bucks an hour plus gas, wear and tear on the car, meals.......etc etc.

Daniel said...

Anonymous:

I would love to get some inside memos detailing the use of vehicles, expense accounts, etc.

Interested in becoming an anonymous whistleblower?