[TheForge] Burning Clean

[Grover Richardson]

A study a few years ago found that a "standard (what they decided was close
to the average)" city bus got 4.6 miles per gallon during summer.

Now a lot of that could be alleviated by putting a device on the bus so that
lead footed drivers would have to drive correctly.  Still, it's a bunch of
metal towing around a few passengers.  

Another issue.  Proponents for buses state that they are heavily used during
rush hours.  This is true, and good.  However, it is necessary to run buses
down routes when the routes are not heavily used, in order to encourage
people to use the buses often, for example for shopping in the middle of the
day.  Also feeder routes are kept open, sometimes at a loss, in order to
bring ridership up on the main routes.

The best bang for the buck, small motorcycles.  When I was in Toulon France
in the '70s the naval station had a rush hour of bicycles with small motors
sitting on the front of them.  All 2 cycle.  They were not allowed to run
the motors on base, but as they pedaled out of the base at the red light
they all started up.

>*>-----Original Message-----
>*>From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net 
>*>[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Mike Porter
>*>Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 8:57 PM
>*>To: 'Bob Ehrenberger'; 'Sponsored by ABANA'
>*>Subject: RE: Re: [TheForge] Burning Clean
 
>*>
>*>Please accept my apologies if this sounds brutal, but my 
>*>philosophy boils down to "it is what it is." Of course, you 
>*>can always take public transportation to work. Giving up the 
>*>use of your car for commuting will do a lot more to cut back 
>*>on senseless energy waste than agonizing over fuel spent 
>*>heating a forge on your weekends. Mikey 
>*>