I’m a believer in effective mass transit as a means of reducing our energy needs and creating more jobs. Airlines continue to face troubling times with increasing fuel costs and decreasing profit margins. Compound the lack of free amenities on-board flights with ever increasing security restrictions and I just don’t see many airlines being able to remain viable.
Trains and buses afford a cost-effective means of transporting both commuters and travelers alike. By running trains on electricity reduces the reliance on foreign oil. More and more busses now run on either biodiesel or electricity as well. Trolley cars are becoming quite the norm to run local travelers and commuters around (Cincinnati is still pursuing trolleys for the Over-The-Rhine area). A comprehensive mass transportation approach just makes good sense.
Well I just read an article that makes me wonder if trains and buses aren’t going to become the next industry invaded by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA). Ontario health officials are searching for 27 people who may have been exposed to tuberculosis while travelling on a Greyhound bus from Toronto to Windsor on Aug. 31. There's a "moderate risk" they contracted the disease, public health officials said Thursday. You read the entire article here.
People need to take more responsibility for their actions. If someone knows they have, or suspects they may have, a highly communicable disease like tuberculosis they need to stay home! Last year a US citizen flew from Atlanta on an overseas flight knowing he had TB but felt his need to travel outweighed the safety of others. Apparently the same thing happened on the Greyhound bus in Ontario. TB is contagious and with strains that are resistant to antibiotics, this case is very disconcerting. However, we can’t overreact and start adding even more restrictions to travel. Hopefully the Center for Disease Control (CDC) will team with the TSA to develop some reasonable safeguards for travelers.
“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.”--Benjamin Franklin
2 comments:
Cincinnati is considering modern streetcar for Over-the-Rhine, not vintage trolleys. You can learn more about the Cincinnati Streetcar at www.cincystreetcar.com
According to Webster's, trolley means "a: a device that carries electric current from an overhead wire to an electrically driven vehicle b: a streetcar powered electrically through a trolley."
I did not use the word vintage. From the pictures I've seen, the streetcars proposed for Cincinnati would use a trolley to reach the electrical lines.
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