Re: Why Worldcons aren't perfect Re: Just got our first PR after joining... W

In article <e9e5il$k9i$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, kfl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Keith F.
Lynch) wrote:

Dan Goodman <dsgood@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Every time the Twin Cities bus company makes major changes to some
routes (which they do four times a year), two kinds of letters to
the editor show up in the Star Tribune. 1) "I bought my house
because it was on a bus route, and now I have to walk three blocks
to a bus stop! It's not fair! Mommy, make Metro Transit give me
back my bus!" 2) "I bought this house because it wasn't on a bus
route, and now they're inflicted bus-rider cooties on me! It's
Unconstitutional!"

That's one advantage of rail over bus, an advantage I've never seen
mentioned: People make decisions on where to live, and on where to
work, based on transportation. Bus routes may disappear at some
bureacrat's idle whim, leaving you in a world of hurt. But there's
so much sunk cost in a rail line -- especially a subway line --
that it's far less likely to be suddenly shut down.

Ever heard of Dr Beeching? He was chairman of British Rail in the early
sixties and closed down a lot of rail lines in Britain. Flanders and
Swan fans might know the song "The Slow Train" which was written in the
fallout of these cuts.

In the town I grew up in, there was a railway line (a branch from the
Stockton and Darlington line). I think trains were running on it when
we moved to the town in 1958, but by the time I was old enough to be
wandering around the town on my own in the late sixties, the tracks had
disappeared.

My sister lived until recently near Abingdon in Oxfordshire, a very big
town. There is a large supermarket there in Station Road. However,
there isn't a station there anymore.
.

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