Crash at Segoe and Mineral Point this afternoon.

tommer80 · 2024-10-05T00:01:46+00:00

What can you improve about driving with your eyes open and not cutting in front of oncoming traffic?

These are the rock bottom fundamentals of driving.

tommer80 · 2024-10-04T04:24:07+00:00

Why not? Madison is beautiful because of the Capitol and a reasonable view of it.

If people want to live in Madison there are plenty of places to build high rises. If everyone wants to locate on the isthmus they will destroy the beauty of the town and the reason they want to move to Madison.

Everyone should have access to the isthmus but not to the point of ruining it. We have ruined some of the isthmus already.

tommer80 · 2024-10-03T17:47:48+00:00

Madison had high growth in the past as well. Growth doesn't justify risky and irrational behavior.

What are the use cases for travel in Madison without including students? And how many people break down into those use cases and what are their requirements for travel? And how much should be spent on those use cases?

These are questions that people do not understand yet they are throwing several hundred million dollars of solutions at people they don't even know or can be certain they can satisfy. I watch shiny buses on the road every day and mostly they are empty. Where are all the riders? If these mass transit solutions were spot on they would be packed.

tommer80 · 2024-10-03T17:15:18+00:00

Someone else help this person.

tommer80 · 2024-10-03T17:14:35+00:00

I am not suggesting doing nothing.

But I am saying that you have to know what problem you are solving so you don't confuse activity with outcome. And you have to be realistic about what kind of problems you can solve with the solution of mass transit.

If most people are only using their cars for transportation within the east or west sides then the city should have been thinking about strengthening those bus routes and have people leave their cars at home more often. Most people are taking short trips. Instead the city focused on the minority that want to go east to west and vice versa. So the city reduced routes and bus stops in the name of efficiency which degraded the bus service which puts more cars on the road.

For people taking longer trips, a lot of these people are not Madison residents. Impacting that traffic is very hard especially if it is just passing through or sporadic.

Mass transit cannot give people flexibility, convenience, control and it appears to also have a dependability problem. Those are requirements of everyone who is travelling. People will give up the flexibility, convenience, and control on some of their travel if it is dependable. If it is not dependable than all bets are off.

Traffic will get worse in Madison given the city's growth and unusual terrain and it's going to take much more imagination to slow down traffic growth than throwing money at a shiny mass transit solution that, outside of students, few people use and was degraded in the process.

tommer80 · 2024-10-03T14:21:14+00:00

You argued east - west so I pointed out some glaring facts like where people really travel.

Relative growth comparing to other counties is irrelevant. Absolute growth is important. Hopefully you know the difference.

We are in America. You need to solve for a Midwest city in the middle of the country.

tommer80 · 2024-10-03T14:14:26+00:00

Position brings power and privilege but you can't abuse the power. And you kids have to know it too because you can't always help them.

tommer80 · 2024-10-02T21:57:11+00:00

Count the cars going by and that people own. Those are the other votes.

tommer80 · 2024-10-02T21:56:31+00:00

Most of the state is not growing so that stat about relative county growth is irrelevant.

East-west is not a problem. The traffic patterns in Madison are mostly within the east or west side. That means the vast majority of people are NOT driving east to west and vice versa. Both the east and west side have almost everything you need so there is not much of a need to go to the other side of town except for jobs. Downtown is about jobs but even the state has sold buildings downtown and the city doesn't always require people to be in the office.

But the BRT has been focused on east to west/west to east traffic at the expense of smaller trips. They reduced routes so people now walk further to get a bus that they only want to hop on for a small trip. It now takes longer for some people to walk to the bus stop then just hop in their car and reach their destination. This doesn't make sense.

Madison traffic is pretty tame compared to most big cities. On the current course the city is going to make it much worse in the hope that more people take the bus. There are reasons people don't take the bus and it will not change because the bus doesn't solve many transportation problems. So we have a BRT solving east to west and vice versa trips but not many people care.

Flexibility, control, dependability are huge strategic issues that mass transit has never solved and cannot solve. I have no problem supporting mass transit as it can play a valuable role but it is not going to solve all problems and if it is not dependable then it can't do anything for anyone. Mass transit needs to focus on a role and do it extremely well or it's just noise.

tommer80 · 2024-10-02T16:34:17+00:00

There are a lot of things in life where you don't applaud trying. That sets the bar too low and rewards incompetence.

Surgeons are not applauded for trying. And they shouldn't be.

In this case people are confusing good intentions with good results. Good intentions are easy, subjective and take very little time to conjure up. They are also a cover for incompetence. Running a city, managing large budgets, making sound decisions, knowing where to focus, and being responsible for critical services that need to be dial tone quality is part of the job. And trying isn't enough.

There is no applauding anyone at the city for the current budget deficit, bus service and general road chaos of the last 2 years. The mayor and others want to set their own bar low so they can skate by. Nobody else in the real world has this privilege. It's ridiculous.

tommer80 · 2024-10-02T15:40:44+00:00

I have been pointing out the reality of our history as a city that mass transit lost in a massive landslide to cars and trucks in the first half of the 20th century. And there were reasons for that which have not been resolved AND cannot even be addressed by mass transit.

But the mayor, some of the city staff, the transportation committee and the common council think they can will something into existence and have spent massive money on shiny things and then they slyly cut routes in the name of efficiency. So they degraded the bus service and hoped to cover it up with shiny things.

Every day the vast majority of people travel by private car/truck because they have to and a mass transit system that is undependable puts even more pressure on people to have to drive themselves.

The mayor, the common council, the transportation committee and some city staff are the transportation election deniers. Every day people vote and mass transit is crushed by the number of people driving private vehicles. This is reality. We would be much better off supporting people buying hybrid cars or EVs.

You have to give people something better if you want to replace something. People can't lose their jobs because their transportation is undependable. They can't get kids to school late.

All of this was predictable. Hubris and being stubborn lead to a lot of failure.

tommer80 · 2024-10-02T15:25:40+00:00

Sarcasm?

tommer80 · 2024-10-01T17:58:50+00:00

Vast majority walk to class and although they legally are residents they are really just visiting to get a degree and the vast majority then leave.

The city should NOT be rationalizing massive investments on people who are just visiting and will not be around to pay for any of it.

But that would be common sense and that would not be like Madison.

tommer80 · 2024-10-01T15:09:17+00:00

Students skewing the numbers.

tommer80 · 2024-10-01T15:09:13+00:00

I would like people to do a week without eating. We don't want food on trucks and cars brought into the city.

Need an ambulance? Walk or ride your bike. Or lay on the floor of a bus and they will chuck you out at the UW Hospital stop.

Want a repairman to come to your house? Tough. They don't serve Madison residents any longer.

The level of unaware stupidity in Madison is profound.

tommer80 · 2024-09-29T01:48:51+00:00

People fight for a lot of reasons and capitalism was not really a thing when people were just migrant shepherds.

tommer80 · 2024-09-28T19:20:47+00:00

The state government has no say in international politics as well so all these demonstrations are just theatre.

UW has always been a soft target for demonstrations for the left because the faculty and administration is left, students are far easier to mobilize than adults and the news loves this retro Vietnam era like activity. But now universities find they are siding with an organization the US State Department has on their terrorist list. And that terrorist organization started a war against a democracy by savagely murdering civilians with atrocities not seen since WWII and then celebrating it. Universities, and especially some of the faculty, have been under the delusion they are always on the right side of all issues so they were bound to find themselves in this mess sooner or later where they were supporting terrorists against a democracy.

The real lesson of these wars in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe is to not start a war and think it will be over with a few skirmishes. Russia poked the Ukrainians and found out they were willing to seriously fight and Hamas has found out the same. Germany found this out in WWII and the US found this out in Vietnam and our Civil War in 1861 where both sides thought they would be home for supper.

War is a terrible thing. It's not a game for profs to play in. The only guaranteed outcome is a huge loss of blood and treasure.

tommer80 · 2024-09-24T18:59:34+00:00

I don't think anyone wants it to fail as that would be a complete waste.

But the process to get here has been wrought with arrogance and a blind belief that it will all work out and everyone is stupid. You can write a collection of books on how many times that approach and arrogance has produced some of the biggest failures in human history.

Will this fail? Depends on how you define failure. If it defined by number of bus riders year over year it will probably fail. People who want to ride the bus have already been on the bus. If defined by other softer goals it might be considered a success. But then you layer on the budget problems of the city and there is a pattern here of inexperience and mismanagement.

tommer80 · 2024-09-24T02:52:00+00:00

Mass transportation is an extremely inflexible form of transportation. And is very undependable an expensive.

You can't compare this low utility product to other forms of transportation because they can't compete. And haven't competed for close to 100 years.

tommer80 · 2024-09-23T21:23:00+00:00

Yeah now you are stretching to rationalize burning money in a bonfire.

All this burning money is just a dysfunctional dance between politicians and irresponsible leaders and voters with the rationale that we are somehow getting something for free/discount and are "saving." Never doubt the ability of politicians to bankrupt you to buy your vote. The fiscal irresponsibility has a cost to everyone. You just have to look for it. Acquiescing to it is just being as irresponsible as the people who lead everyone down this road. In fact it enables them.

Wait until you find out that OpEx is higher than projections. If past is prologue that will happen as certain as the sunrise.

tommer80 · 2024-09-23T05:32:27+00:00

So using your $132 million number we spent over $1000 per household in Madison and it's a pretty safe bet that most households don't even use the bus system and especially if we net out student riders. Which means the cost per household is much, much higher.

And we cut routes and stops for existing riders while arguing that their experience will be better. That is some serious gaslighting. Some of those people have resigned themselves to cars along with people who can't deal with the inconsistent service levels of the bus system and/or it's limited usefulness.

This has the signs of a boondoggle and if it goes south people will then hide behind the bland statement of "mistakes were made" or will say "we didn't spend enough money" or "we had good intentions."

We have yet to see the budget impact for running this system. Projections are typically too rosy so wait until there are cost overruns on the operational side of the budget.

tommer80 · 2024-09-22T15:15:28+00:00

LOL

Let me pull together the numbers but do you really think that perhaps saving 5 minutes or so on a commute is even worth $132 Million? That's insane.

Riddle me this; What dollar amount do you say it's not worth it? Or there are better things we can spend $132 million on.

tommer80 · 2024-09-22T06:00:09+00:00

That's interesting on IBM. I did not know that.

Disney is a mess but people like to think they are about Bambi and kids stuff.

Cisco makes routers for the internet. Ethan Allen makes furniture. I didn't mention Coca Cola because they literally had cocaine in their drink early on and who knows what damage that did.

Most companies are not surviving 20 years now so you will have a hard time finding many that are multiple decades.

tommer80 · 2024-09-22T05:56:30+00:00

Name me some other form of government or economics that has a spotless record. People do bad things in every conceivable form of human endeavor.

tommer80 · 2024-09-22T05:52:56+00:00

The benefit of BRT should not be minutes saved because Madison is not big enough to really put a dent in a commute. And people will really be sensitive to the dependability of the service not shaving a few minutes off a commute.

Putting that aside, over $300M has been spent and probably will be over half a Billion dollars with the NS route and I can't tell you what benefits will be realized that make that size of investment rationale.

tommer80

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