Not Ranked
This gets me thinking back to BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). For the money that was spent on it and to operate it, every liscensed driver in any of the counties where it operated could have been given a brand new small 2 seater commuter vehicle and every non-liscensed adult could have been given stipend for free cab and bus rides for the cost of BART. With the smaller commuter cars, they could have effectively double the number of freeway lanes during rush hour (by effectively halving the width of freeway lanes due to the smaller car widths) without spending a cent in new freeway construction. Parking capacity in the Bay Area would have increased dramatically. Total emissions and fuel consumption in the Bay Area would have dropped substantially and almost immediately. Instead the Bay Area ended up with a nice, heavly subsidized, little used "mass transit" system and iis same old gridlock and problems. Government seems not to realize that the automobile is the mass transit system in the US. It is also the preferred system for most people.
Government needs to leave the old cars alone and give incentives for people to get cars with better fuel economy, less emmisions, etc. The "junkers" are driven because the people that drive them can not afford a better alternative. The "classics" are driven because they are "classic". To change them is to disrupt living art. They are a very small part of fuel or emissions activity.
Goverment likes to act on the first order effect -- that which is immediate and highly visible. It is like a doctor treating the symptoms of a disease instead of its root cause.
Do you know why gas is so expensive in Europe, Japan, etc. It is not the price of crude. It is government policy. The gas is expensive because of taxes. High gas prices provide an economic incentive for people to purchase fuel efficient cars. The newer fuel efficient cars also are built to meet tighter emission standards. By giving people an economic incentive to buy newer cars and get rid of junkers, government gets money to fix the infrastructure, better fleet fuel economy, better emissions, and other benefits. Government will not do it because increasing the price of gas is unpopular and it will "hurt the poor." If government was really concerned about the poor, they could have a negative income tax to offset the increased burden on the poor.
We have a hypocritical elite mentality that the automobile in all forms is basically bad and the root of all evil. Horse drawn transportation is not polution free or sanitary. So-called "mass transit" does not give the freedom and independence that most people desire. Even if a person refuses to own a car, they are still dependent upon trucks to deliver the goods that they need. I use the word "elite" because some people believe that they are right and everyone else should live according to their values. We need a way to live together, not to live in opposition or suppression.
The Taliban destroyed icons that did not meet their view of Islam. We have some legislators that would try to destroy icons that do not meet their view of a polution free society. To change some of the classic cars by retro fitting emissions is to destroy them. To force a replica to have emissions is to no longer have a replica. We would not tolerate government going into an art museum and retrofitting all nude statues and paintings with clothes. This destroys the original. This destroys the art. This destroys a part of all of us.
Keep up the good fight is keeping our art (classic cars and replicas of them) and our freedom to have and use our art.
|