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• Saturday, November 3, 2007 01:15 AM

  @SB, MM

  SB, I wish the difference was that CA has legions of walkers/riders, but that’s just not the case. Sure, we have many more than any other state I have been in, but not nearly enough to make any difference. I suspect most of the difference stems from a combination of more fuel-efficient cars, roads which have reached their maximum densities which causes people to creatively avoid as much commuting as possible, much more tele-commuting, and a very large self-employed IT population. Also, we generally require sidewalks to connect housing to shopping, which allows people to walk to local shops.That said, I really do not know why the large difference in fuel consumption.

  For Mizmoon, we did build mass-transit all over the country when we had the chance. Every city had extensive trolley lines and we had some regional inter-city rail systems. Then we allowed G.M. to take it out after WWII. Some forward-looking populations have been putting back in their trains and trolleys since the ‘80s (L.A., Sacramento, Portland, Seattle out west), but maybe too little, too late. Even in NY city, most of the cars on the road at any given time originate and end their trips from within NYC, and you guys are supposed to have a fairly complete mass transit system (NY Times had an article about this several months ago). By the way, why drive the 1.3 miles? I wouldn’t even bother getting out a bike for such a short trip. Criminy, you could do it on a pogo stick and barely break a sweat. So many Americans use their fossil-fuel powered wheel chairs for every little errand it is no wonder we use one-fourth of the world’s energy.

  —human power Read human power's other letters
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