Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Nov 09, 2004 Posts: 1257 Location: Big Rock Candy Mountain
Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 5:15 pm Post subject: Re: West L.A. traffic approaching total dysfunctionality
Anyone here remember Henry Miller's classic: 'The Air Conditioned Nightmare'? (1945)
The disgust expressed in this thread reminds me of how this book woke me up to the horror of petroindustrial civilization. (I was 16, still in high school in Ventura Cal.)
Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 7:23 pm Post subject: Re: West L.A. traffic approaching total dysfunctionality
Zardoz wrote:
NEOPO wrote:
...Perhaps a movement will occur and people like Zardoz will manage just fine which makes me wonder, since Z is so vocal about all of this then what is Z doing to prep, to set an example etc etc?
What are you doing to make it better Z?
Just curious.
My problem is that I don't see any way that anybody can predict what will happen or when it will. Like I posted before: The future is like a fogbank that we're heading into in the dark. We don't know how far away the fogbank is, how thick the fog willl be, or what's on the other side of it.
Here's one thing you know about going into a fogbank: SLOW DOWN. Not being willing to rush forward (like the other 6.6 billion people are doing) will serve you well, as it gives you more time to react.
What will happen? Well, oil is depleting. There will be less available in the future than now. Just like in the summer, it will be warmer than it is now (winter/colder for Southern Hemispherists). How much warmer? When exactly will summer begin? All your life you've dealt with the unpredicatability and unreliability of the weather. "How much less oil, when will it start" is the same kind of problem.
So you do have it better off than the 6.6 billion neophytes who have no idea what's coming. And a great, great deal you can plan for.
Quote:
I used a travel analogy: It's like we know we're leaving on a trip, but we don't know where we're going, when we're leaving, what means of transportation we'll use, what the route will be, what we'll need on the trip, what we'll need when we get there, how long the trip will take, and whether or not anybody will be going with us.
What will you need to pack (prepare for)? Everything essential to life. Everything that you "need" right now that is supplied by fossil fuel energy. The top questions you need to answer are from where will you get water, food, clothing, and shelter. Why? Because oil and other depleting fossil fuels are essential (only in this infrastructure) to obtain water, food, clothing, and shelter.
You don't know if TSHTF this year, next year, or in 20 years. But it will happen, and you know the things you will need when fossil fuels can't supply them anymore. Think earthquake preparedness, but for a case where the govt and civil services are absent indefinitely.
Quote:
Like I said: How do we know what to pack? How do you prepare for the unknown?
How has anyone, in all of human history, prepared for the unknown?
Partially by not letting fear and "analysis paralysis" of the unknown take you down.
The character of Charles Morse (Anthony Hopkins) from The Edge put it like so:
Quote:
I once read an interesting book which said that most people lost in the wilds, they die of shame. Yeah, see, they die of shame. "What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?" And so they sit there and they... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives. Thinking.
So, in regards to the traffic, what do I think? People will try to hold on to their cars and the car culture. Governments, corporations, and other organizations will make investments that attempt to maintain the infrastructure that the people demand for their cars. Follow the problem forward, what possible tracks it might take, figure out what it means to you, plan for it. The way I see it, the traffic problem will worsen until widespread economic contraction (recession, depression), and/or possibly some severe external event (pandemic, ongoing climate change). _________________ "We have seen the enemy, and he is us." -- Walt Kelly
Joined: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 130 Location: San Diego, California
Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 9:55 am Post subject: Re: West L.A. traffic approaching total dysfunctionality
gg3 wrote:
It takes me an hour and three-quarters to do a trip that under normal conditions takes a half hour. It would have been faster to walk the whole damn distance. And most of the clog was ahead of the metering lights on the approach to the bridge.
So yes, this crap is hitting the fan in places other than LA.
That reminds me of the scene from the cult classic comedy movie "Office Space" where the main character Peter is stuck in traffic on his daily commute to work and an old man alongside of him on the sidewalk with a walker is going faster.
Joined: Sep 16, 2004 Posts: 4927 Location: Southwest WI
Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 2:15 pm Post subject: Re: West L.A. traffic approaching total dysfunctionality
Love Office Space. "ahhh, Yeah....right"
Quote:
I harbor no delusions of grandeur that I can make a dent in the behavior of 6,600,000,000 people.
Agree 100%. Try telling just one person something there doing wrong and they'll blow up @ you. I made a comment to a relative about his smoking (casuallY) and i still think he doesn't like me! THis was 6 years ago! Try telling whole populations that PO is coming and they'll laugh you out of town. _________________ Clothing should be optional.
Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 9:44 pm Post subject: Re: West L.A. traffic approaching total dysfunctionality
Hi.
Agree with you all about how people are likely to respond. Folks don't take warnings well. Have found it best just to warn certain needed people and a few close relatives. People in general are likely to keep on in their destructive habits until they are no longer physically able to maintain them.
Joined: Nov 25, 2006 Posts: 1543 Location: New Jersey
Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 7:03 pm Post subject: Anyone in the Monterey Bay area (CA)?
My GF and I will be coming up to look at apartments Thursday and Friday of this week. Anyone know a cheap place we can crash Thursday night (cheap motel, your couch, wherever)? Any peakers on here from the area?
Joined: Aug 14, 2005 Posts: 766 Location: Dead civilization walking
Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 3:54 pm Post subject: Re: West L.A. traffic approaching total dysfunctionality
There is a huge groundswell to expand the subway lines and add above grade LRT where feasible. The hoity-toits in the Westside and Beverly Hills fought a subway down Wilshire/Exposition/Sta Monica Blve/3rd St for years because they didn't want "Spanish people" in their area-never mind who mows their lawns and cleans their houses. That has changed. LRT down Exposition blvd from DT LA/USC to Culver City is a go. A line underneath Wilshire Blvd from DT to Sta Monica is also moving along in the planning/funding stages. NIMBYISM set the city back by a good 15 years. There is a renewed interest in highrise housing in the urban core/inner ring suburbs as opposed to commuting in from Riverside to work in Century City. It would be a long and painful process even if PO/climate change were non-existent. There are shortcuts however. I got from West Hollywood to San Pedro the other day in rush hour in one hour. I took one of my secret routes through South Central. It's not currently as bad a warzone as some think.
Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 4:07 pm Post subject: Re: West L.A. traffic approaching total dysfunctionality
Ironically enough, we just got word today that the competition that we're now taking for urban design (grad school) is in ta-da...Los Angeles!
It's basically four blocks around E. 1st Street & the LA River, near a place called "Mariachi Plaza."
Pretty desolate looking. Hope we can work some magic here.
BTW, it's a 10-day competition held by the Urban Land Institute; 108 teams nationwide, should be fun. _________________ "It's called the American Dream because you'd have to be asleep to believe it."
Joined: Oct 13, 2004 Posts: 198 Location: Mahachai City
Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 8:53 am Post subject: Re: West L.A. traffic approaching total dysfunctionality
have the people of this city ever considered building a skytrain or subway system and runing more buses with a peak hour headway of every 60 seconds.
why dont they build and elevated rail line above most of the main roads in this city if the traffic is that bad that it takes long to drive than walk.
it seems to be an extreamly car mad city it does not make sence to not have even a simple mass transit system. But i have lived with mass transit all my life in verous forms some good some crappy.
just an example below of some areas with extreme congestion.
i have know of a few place around that its quicker to walk than take a bus one is route 511 from southern bus terminal to patuman via pethaburi road. the 7 way junction with 4 track level crossing runing at diagnaols through the 7 way junction makes for a very slow trip it take about 1 hour just to travel 2 km at peak time
all the roads are at capsitiy both in an outbound in peak time and these roads all have 30 plus bus routes with 1 min headway it still doesnt cope. the rail makes it worse as it ther busiest metro and intercity junction in the whole system with a train movement evey 45 to 70 seconds at peak though the middle of this junction at 10 kph with horn at full blast.
a project will be under taken to grad sep this level crossing and to ease some of the though traffic with flyovers but this junction is lined with massive condo and office towers on all sides so it cannot be widened.
Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 10:05 pm Post subject: Re: West L.A. traffic approaching total dysfunctionality
Hi.
America has been car mad since WW1, the 1910s. Expect peoople to hold to their cultural prejudices with inflexible egotistical belligerance in the face of physical realities that render them infeasible. Americans are tied to individualism, cars and oil, mortgages, bombs, and literal Christian dogma. Don't expect that to change until they have been replaced for the most part.
Joined: Dec 02, 2005 Posts: 6786 Location: Oil-addicted Southern Californucopia
Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 2:48 am Post subject: Re: West L.A. traffic approaching total dysfunctionality
gwmss15 wrote:
have the people of this city ever considered building a skytrain or subway system and runing more buses with a peak hour headway of every 60 seconds.
why dont they build an elevated rail line above most of the main roads in this city if the traffic is that bad that it takes long to drive than walk...
We've been wondering for a long time why the Los Angeles-Orange County metropolitan area does not have a grid of elevated monorail lines like these:
The elevated monorails make too much sense, and are too logical a means of implementing mass transit in this massive megalopolis, so of course a system of them will never be built. Our tax dollars at work... _________________ "Thank you for attending the oil age. We're going to scrape what we can out of these tar pits in Alberta and then shut down the machines and turn out the lights. Goodnight." - seldom_seen
Joined: Oct 13, 2004 Posts: 198 Location: Mahachai City
Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 3:47 am Post subject: Re: West L.A. traffic approaching total dysfunctionality
that is so bad that the govt of LA allowed the tram system to be removed at least in Melbourne australia where the state had direct control of the Tram system that it is still all in place and has expanded to be come the largest urban tram system in the world
the people who run your city really need to get there act together ASAP about transit
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Hope we can work some magic here.
