Date:         Fri, 12 Nov 1999 09:37:29 -0700
Reply-To:     Kevin and Heather <keather@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Kevin and Heather <keather@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: Interstates
Comments: To: vanagon@vanagon.com
In-Reply-To:  <19991112.105036.6687.0.kdlewis@juno.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>Karl;
>
>I, for one, would like to see some real world figures to substantiate
>that claim.
>
>

He does have a slight point, in that diesel fuel is taxed proportionally
much higher than gasoline, and much of that tax is earmarked for DOT use,
but at the same time, it is the big trucks that put the most abuse on the
road system.

The interstate highway system was a boondogle, cooked up by the automotive
and petrolium industry and cloaked in the guise of 'national security' to
sell it to the public. Can anyone seriously believe their effectiveness as
evacuation routes with a 25 min nuclear strike warning?  Real estate
developers positively salivated over the prospect of new suburbs feeding
into the cities via these 'super highways' Opponents of the interstate
project, who objected primarily because of either its cost (by far the most
expensive public works project in the history of the world), or because of
its impact (huge swaths of real estate siezed by power of imminent domain,
and small town mainstreet businesses devestated by rerouted traffic) were
branded as communist sympathisers, and there was really no serious debate
or study of its impacts.

Of course we all love it now, because it allows us to cruise 70-80+ mph
from one resturant-chain saturated suburb to another, and never see the
real world in between.

Just my Friday Rant...

______________________________________________________________________________

Kevin and/or Heather

Where have the years gone? Why, into the usual vices of the romantic
idealist: into sloth amd melancholy, each feeding upon and reinforcing the
other, into love and marriage and the begetting of children, into the
strenuous maneuvers of earning a living without living to earn, into travel
and play and music and drink and talk and laughter, into saving the world -
but saving the world was only a hobby. Into watching cloud formations float
across our planetary skies. But mostly into sloth and melancholy and I
don't regret a moment of it.

Edward Abbey.