Not so fun things that have happened around me on non-Singaporean public transit

There has been a lot of concern recently in Singapore about the conditions of public transit and train faults. I'm here to reassure readers that in most fundamental aspects, Singapore's transit system is far above other systems in the fundamental aspects. It's not to say that people shouldn't seek to constantly improve. As a professional, I'm all about learning, adapting, and improving. However, it is pertinent to enjoy the benefits of today and not fall into a cycle of pessimism under the guise that somehow we live in the worst of times. Therefore, I will compile this list, bullet point style, of experiences I've had on non-Singaporean transit systems:

• Last Monday, on a New Jersey Transit train out of NY Penn Station, I was delayed for half an hour in the train in the station due to emergency track repair. Not knowing exactly when the train was taking off, and with a meeting to go to, I couldn't leave to grab the lunch that I had earlier passed up for expediency.
• A few days before, I walked by the A,C,E stop on 125th. There was police tape all over the corners and cops milling around. Somebody was shot in the station.
• In Paris: Strikes. Nuff Said.
• Every few days there was a suicide that would shut down one of the lines for a while.
  
• My last day working in Paris, I took a Subway car from hell whose emergency breaking system automatically activated immediately after reaching full speed five stops in a row.
• In Paris: Average about one solicitation for money from some poor soul for every ten minutes of transit riding.
• Coming from the Paris airport with heavy bags, we were forced to leave the train because of a fire. To catch the replacement train, the PA kept telling us to cross under to different tracks, but the operators seemed to be changing their minds several times while we were dragging bags back and forth.
• Also on the Metro, a man appeared to faint over me, then reached and grabbed a woman's iPhone while she was talking on it and ran off just as the door closed. I believe iPhone theft gets you the death penalty in Singapore.
• There's often smelly people on the Paris trains. I mean smelly like roadkill wrapped in moldy carpet. The worst was a drunkard passing out and voiding his bowels and bladder on the train. Ooh fun.
• On San Francisco's BART, it's so noisy in parts that you need ear plugs.
  
• It's rare to find a part of a Paris train that doesn't have graffiti and scratched windows on it.
• The Beijing trains are so crowded that I can only describe them as squishy.

Leading GOP (and Tea Party) candidate for CO governor joins the fruit and nut brigade against transportation choices

The leading candidate for the GOP nomination for the Colorado governorship is speaking out against U.N. control of our cities. At issue is the ICLEI, the International Council for Local Environmental Issues, a UN group of mayors and cities for discussing and sharing ideas on sustainable development and good practice. Dan Maes is giving the mayor of Denver heat for instituting several initiatives to encourage bicycle riding including a new bike sharing program that is similar to the successful Velib system in Paris.

Maes, at the rally July 26, took aim at Denver's bike-sharing program, which he said was promoted by a group that puts the environment above citizens' rights.

The B-Cycle program places a network of about 400 red bikes for rent at stations around the city. It is funded by private donors and grants.

Maes said ICLEI is affiliated with the United Nations and is "signing up mayors across the country, and these mayors are signing on to this U.N. agreement to have their cities abide by this dream philosophy."

The program includes encouraging employers to install showers so more people will ride bikes to work and also creating parking spaces for fuel-efficient vehicles, he said.

Apparently sharing ideas with other cities and international cities in un-American. Apparently, spending some city tax dollars on programs for people who choose not to use cars and not to use the roads is tantamount to installing communism in America. Apparently if a UN organization hatches a good idea, and some of our cities decide to adopt it, we are signing over our rights to the UN. We are free Americans with choice and freedome and we have the right to drive automobiles. Other methods of transit, nope, those are outlawed by the constitution...or something...

"At first, I thought, 'Gosh, public transportation, what's wrong with that, and what's wrong with people parking their cars and riding their bikes? And what's wrong with incentives for green cars?' But if you do your homework and research, you realize ICLEI is part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty," Maes said.

It has to be assumed that if a city decides not to use an idea hatched in this special UN organization, black helicopters will rein down and UN troops will suck our brains out with straws. They will enforce the non-treaty with the same super world power that stopped the genocide in Sudan and took nuclear weapons out of the hands of Iran and N. Korea.

While this appears to be a kooky argument, what must be taken seriously is how many politicians (usually on the right) look down upon any sort of transportation infrastructure that does not involve an internal combustion engine. The whole issue of transportation alternatives like bikes and rail is that they give us choices, where cars are only one choice and one that is expensive and marred by traffic. And since a bicyclist is still a tax payer, one should demand that tax money is not only spent to subsidize driving. If we stopped subsidizing car infrastructure and made the system pay-as-you-go, the other alternatives would look a lot more popular. Having the government pay for only one choice sounds a lot like the communism that paranoid crazies have been accusing of the Democrats.

The subsidies for motor vehicle travel are numerous and fully supported by conservative policies. This is, sadly, another area where somehow I am at odds with conservatives when the issue itself should transcend the conservative-liberal spectrum. With crazy arguments like the above, how can I be reasonably expected to listen to the other side?

Karl Rove Still Master of Propaganda

Last night, Karl Rove, former Bush adviser and architect of the Bush years--and what a success those were--was heckled out of a book signing for his literary triumph. His response to the vibrant protests:

Rove, who defended his administration's stance on several controversial issues in heated exchanges with other critics, said the interruptions reflected the "totalitarianism of the left."

"They don't believe in dialogue. They don't believe in courtesy. They don't believe in First Amendment rights for anyone but themselves," he said.

Though ironic, this statement reflects what Rove has been doing all along with the Bush administration. Basically accusing his opposition of doing exactly what he is doing; it is so maddening because the counter argument is, "no I'm not, you are." It's a first strike of propaganda that was a basic principle dating years back, the bigger the lie the better. Rove is an excellent liar.

During the Bush years, protest was squashed at any public appearance by Bush. They were rare, but when the audiences were chosen, they were required to promise fealty to the conservative right and master Bush. Talk about a lack of first amendment rights; these were public speeches by our President.

Rove is a master at using an offensive strategy of outright bullshit that is so far from reality that it is almost impossible to formulate a response.

What The Olympics Decision Means for President Obama

Jack Squat.


This wasn't his bid for the Olympics. It was Chicago's and also in a way the whole country's pitch to let us have the games for another round. And out come the headlines that Obama is human. Where'd that come from. If he wasn't human, he wouldn't need secret service people to investigate nutty people inspired by talk show hosts to do harm to public officials.

This is all about ego, but it's not what we think. President Obama has an overinflated ego, that's for sure; but the fault lies not with him, but everybody else in this country. Whether conservative or liberal or none of the above, people give him the ego because they are all interested in watching him. What is an ego besides a sense of self-importance. And the media and us have given it to him. He can't do anything without creating a media circus. It's not his fault that he can't get a burger or meet a dying colleague without a hundred cameras in tow. The nation is obsessed with him, and whether he likes it or not, he knows that people listen (selectively in some cases) when he speaks.

The hilarious part of it is that Obama gets more conservative press than liberal. The conservative media doesn't just report that he's getting a burger, they focus on the mundane details like if he asks for dijon mustard. Then that ties into some circumspect logic that he hates America. Matt Drudge pumps up Obama's ego by constantly obsessing about him and how every unfortunate turn of events is somehow his fault. Lou Dobbs does it by declaring Chicago's loss as "Obama's defeat." Town hall screamers do it by declaring health care reform "Obamacare," when really, we've been talking about similar and more liberal reform for four decades.

The irony is that the liberal part of America just wants things done. They aren't obsessing that Obama is doing it. Of course, the more left leaning of us cheered that Obama stood up and told us we need health care reform. That's because we want him to put in an effort for causes we find just. Of course we want to hear what he has to say on a number of issues, we are most likely to agree--though in many cases we do not.

It's the people who don't like him that prop up his ego, so that they can criticize him for it. If he gives a speech, and the media turns to report it, it's the media who is helping him. If every story on Lou Dobbs mentions President Obama, that's him trying to tie Obama into everything under the sun. Obama has never declared interest in controlling everything. That was Bush when he famously said, "it would be easier if this were a dictatorship." Somehow Obama is an oppressive leader by suggesting things he'd like to see in legislation, then letting congress draft the legislation (they are doing such a shoddy job, I'd like him to step in again, but I'm sure he would just like a bill that he can sign). Bush was the one who force-fed legislation to the rubber stamp Republican congress.

I have no doubt that President Obama gave the Olympics his best shot because he thought it was in the interest of the nation to host them. I was never under the illusion, and I'm sure he wasn't either, that his word would guarantee the Games for Chicago. People who don't like him make him out to be an arrogant dictator so that they can hate him further; and they can also laugh when things don't go his way, under this strange impression that he had until then gotten everything he's wanted. If that were the case, we would already be reaping the benefits of an organized, humanitarian, option rich, and fairly priced health care system.

Insurance Reform Now, Part I

As the deadline approaches, many are questioning why we need to rush to pass reform. Make no mistake, our perilous financial state demands that we reform how we pay for health care. Why has this debate shifted from health care reforms to insurance reform? Because it’s in the financing where our system is failing us. What you pay for health care services is more like roulette than accounting. And insurance is at the heart of our system’s financial failures in addition to the uncertainty and care denials that give health care consumers a raw deal.

In the US, we spent about 15% GDP on health care. This is the highest figure in the world, and almost 50% higher than runners-up Switerland and Germany. Estimates show that this year the US will spend 18% of our GDP on health care. The startling figure is that in terms of overall health outcomes the United States does no better than the countries that cluster around the 11% GDP range like Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany…So in fact, somebody is getting a raw deal here.

We know that the US has many of the most advanced health care centers and the best technology available. We also have rigorously trained doctors who work long hours and are devoted to their practice. Given those facts, we should either have less expensive, more efficient care, or better care that results in better outcomes. Some people probably do have great outcomes, when they can afford to get the care they need, it turns out to be really good. But for others, they are getting sub-standard care or are getting ripped off.

Why should Americans, who live with the “freest” market, with no organized care, be getting the worst deal in the world. The prices for most other goods are set by market forces: food, restaurants, gas, property, electronics. These prices are generally the same in terms of quality except where there are some subsidies, of which there are a few in 1st world countries. However, the free market has failed for health care and health insurance.

In most states, for the private consumer of insurance, there are one or two choices. Imagine having just two parties to choose from when deciding on elected officials… Heh, well there you go. Hold your nose and choose the one you think is “best,” and prepare to be disappointed. When you end up with a broken leg or get cancer, you may or may not get what you thought you would to cover your medical bills. If you are lucky, you will have your care covered, but maybe the wheel will come up double zero and you get the “pre-existing condition excuse.” Maybe you thought you could use your doctor, but he turned out to have gone out of network, and you get to pay 50% of the bills for your orthopedic surgery. How can one make a good decision if they don’t even know what they are getting? Can Adam Smith’s invisible hand operate if it is also blind?

If the system worked well, you would submit your bill for services that a doctor said were essential to bring you back to health, and an insurance agent would quickly look to see that it was signed by the doctor and quickly pay off the bill. Instead, there is an entire bureaucracy using your premium dollars to make your service as bad as possible. Once you get an expensive malady, the insurer has no reason to care if you are satisfied or not. Now, with a choice of many insurers, one could read reviews of different providers and there would be competition in customer service if they wanted anybody new to sign on. In reality, with virtual monopolies (or duopoloies), you don’t have a choice, both can collaborate to be equally stingy in payouts, and if you become an unsatisfied customer, you can switch providers but if you manage to succeed in changing, you will never get coverage for anything related to the now “pre-existing condition” that was so poorly treated by the other insurer.

Let’s go a little further shall we. Many of us have coverage through our employer. Here, your health care is subsidized by the government by virtue of it coming out of pre-tax employment benefits. If you are unfortunate and have to purchase coverage for your and your family, give Uncle Sam his due first. Here, there is probably not much consumer choice as you are stuck taking what your employer gives you. It’s probably better insurance and a better deal; but don’t get fired, or you will only be able to keep that great deal for 15 months under COBRA. And you will have to pay through your nose to commission the help of an evil terrorist organization bent on taking over the world. And once it’s over, hope that you don’t have any health problems when you want to pick up one of the privately available providers or you will be denied. Great choice there.

So the market for health insurance doesn’t hold a candle to a free market. There is low consumer mobility, lack of choices, and light competition. There is also a lot of uncertainty in the services that are provided, a lot of subsidies, and a lot of overhead. Remember, health insurance is like paying for services before they are rendered, so the financier benefits by paying out as little as possible.

This is only the insurance part of health care financing. In the next installment we will look at the free market failures of pricing, billing, and compensation.

Dear Opponents of Health Care Reform

I was wrong. You are right. Although I still believe that our medical system is the biggest threat to our solvency as a nation, you are right; I admit it. Those few “plants” in town halls--whether self-motivated by “good intentions” to ask questions about a subject they thought relevant while misrepresenting themselves, or being part of the Big Brother Obama Fascist Communist Anarchist Peacenik Surrender-monkey Death Squad--were so heinous that I now believe that we, as pro-reform advocates, must now withdraw our grievances against the current health care system and wait at least 16 years before failing to pass health care reform again. This is the appropriate recourse, despite the victory of a presidential candidate who ran on a platform including health care reform, the fraction of one percent of people who have disrupted the debate are so heinous that we must abandon efforts to bring the system and it’s costs in line with other industrialized nations with similar outcomes. The savings of trillions of dollars, the shoring up of our already socialized medicine for seniors, the promise of everybody paying their fair share for insurance but no longer facing the threat of bankruptcy, the assurance that doctors and hospitals will be paid more for the services they provide, and the hope that our emergency rooms will no longer be primary care clinics for the uninsured; it can in no way justify the actions of a few people who dared to make false statements for political gain.

I give up. In fact, these trespasses are so outrageous, that I even give up my past complaints about Republicans and all of the Bush policies. Taking softball questions from planted reporter Jeff Gannon? Forgiven. Lying and exaggerating to drum up support for a war against a non-terrorist-harboring regime that was a natural enemy to a nation that was harboring terrorists? Forgiven. $5 trillion more in debt, growing government to record levels, while government itself provided less? Forgiven. The largest expansion of socialized medicine, Medicare part D, while standing against socialized medicine? Forgiven. Throwing anybody out of presidential speeches who dared wear a T-shirt that supported the troops but not the war (bring them home, etc…)? Forgiven.

Yes, because of this, and because it happened in support of Democratic policies, you are right, I am wrong. We democrats must now climb into holes for the next two-years, nothing we do is correct, no matter how many people agree with the public option, or how necessary we believe it to be.

Conservative Arguments for Rail Transit

Anybody who knows me knows that I am an advocate of mass-transit over vehicle traffic. Many though think that this is a liberal-conservative issue. A smart interview with William Lind should end that notion. Among many interesting points, Lind suggests that the conservative-liberal divide has more to do with geographic placement than relative transit choices. Rural and suburban areas tend to be more conservative, and they also have almost no access to transit, nor are those areas well served by the same mass transit that is advocated for cities. Meanwhile, city dwellers can see an immediate need, and/or already experience mass-transit and usually want more of it.

I have always been surprised that my conservative friends actually like rail transit when the option is competitive with cars, and people these days are getting hooked on any form of transit that allows one to take his eyes off the road.

Many have argued that with the advent of the automobile, rail transportation became obsolete; the changes in our infrastructure grew out of conscious consumer choice. Lind has the money quote to allay any misconceptions:

Another idea that’s pervasive is that public transportation is subsidized but the gas tax fully pays for highways.
That’s a powerful argument the libertarians make to conservatives, and it’s bunk. The current dominance of roads is due to massive subsidization by government which through most of the twentieth century competed with privately owned, privately operated railways including streetcar systems that had to pay taxes. Every conservative understands very quickly what happens when you tax one mode and subsidize the other. The taxed mode disappears and the subsidized mode becomes dominant. Nothing about our current imbalance in transportation is a free market outcome. Not in the slightest.

The notion that the gas tax covers all highway expenses is a notion that will send any state Governor into fits of laughter. The highways require enormous support, local state and federal, that goes well beyond what gas taxes bring in. So it’s not a question of a subsidized mode versus an unsubsidized mode.

Government subsidies for the auto industry were and continue to be the problem. Lind even goes so far as to suggest that the gas tax can be raised. He points out that gasoline and our automobile dependence is a national security issue; one that the previous administration paid little attention to, and one that our current administration is not paying enough attention to.

Some other things to keep in mind. Electric cars are not going to save us either. It will take a huge amount of money and continued subsidies to get electric cars out there, and we are still going to have to generate the electricity for them. So far, there are almost no electric cars, and we've been told for the last 15 years that the electric car is just around the corner. Electric cars still don't address the other costs of roads, and the traffic problems that are never solved by adding lanes.

Lind discusses high-speed rail as, "icing on the cake." It supplements a good passenger rail system, but can't substitute for one. It's most important for people to have a competitive alternative to cars, which means a robust network in urban areas, and inter-city trains that run at the 79-90 mph range. HSR is not economical, and will take a lot to compete with airlines for medium and long-hauls.

Transit systems are inherently social. You can meet people on the train. And you don't have to pay attention to the road. Plus, people will always be more attracted to rail transit than for buses. Rail makes sense, the train has to follow the lines and stop at the stops. It's predictable and comfortable. And it usually has it's own right of way.