The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Malachite:
However it could have beem cleverly designed to convey some information that isn't so obvious: a sense of confidence that what you see on the website matches that on the road signs. Otherwise, it would be very easy to not be confident that the website is up-to-date with respect to the actual fee paid. There are many websites around that do not carry accurate up-to-date information.

This was my first thought, too. It's the perfect way to get across the fact that the toll-pricing system and toll-price-reporting system are in fact synchronized, and synchronized with actual traffic flow. What you see really is what you get.

There are a few things which (might) make this a non-WTF. First, as mentioned above. Second, if there's no network connection between the pricing computer and the Internet at large, and they want to make sure it stays that way. Third, if they have this nifty network of traffic cams already in place, it's just another cam. No additional infrastructure needed.

Now granted, the pricing system probably has a public IP, no firewall, and user/pass as admin/12345. It's probably more plausible that the web guy knew how to set up a web cam view, but didn't know how to telnet into the pricing computer and parse the fixed-length binary record format that the signs undoubtedly use.

There are reasonable requirements and circumstances that justify this implementation. Not enough information to call this a WTF.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Recursive Reclusive:
Btw, what do users with smartphones do?

Maybe it's a clever ploy to keep smartphone users from checking fares online while they're driving.

toshir0 · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Recursive Reclusive:
Btw, what do users with smartphones do?

Erm.... die in a fire ?

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Captcha:feugiat:
Maybe it's actually a very clever system disguised as stupidity.

The system was set up to earn money, instead of making the roads less clogged. Clever indeed. Now people can't actually use the system for it its stated purpose, all while it's generating more revenue. I don't know whether they thought of it, but they must add a random component to the fee. That way people cannot rely on experience either.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Unanimous Coward:
Hieronymus Howard:
Forgive my naivete, but wouldn't it still be a relatively simple job to add in a server-side script to trim down the images to just the rectangle containing the actual pricing information and label it on the website with text, saving about 95% of the image bandwidth?

With all the tax-payer dollars they have to waste, you think they care about bandwidth costs?

Actually I think we found the root of this WTF -- the video feed idea must have come from Georgia DOT's ISP and they pay per megabyte! Actually, if the ISP built the site, WIN!, the state saved on having to have another vendor.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
They've also got a real hard-on for adding those "managed lanes" here in Austin. (They haven't yet, but they really want to.) Because they listened to a bunch of idiots back in the 50s, 60s and 70s who kept turning down highway expansion plans, we have a bunch of undersized highways in areas that are now way too expensive to condemn (one runs through what has gentrified into a high-rent district), and so overloaded that it'll be a nightmare to rebuild them even with modern construction techniques that don't waste 50% of the width in slopes. (And then there are the cemeteries along two of the most overloaded roads.)

'

That's exactly why it's a terrible idea to build grade-separated highways through an urban area in the first place. Amazing that one of the adjoining neighborhoods turned into a high-rent district despite the highway proximity.

Sounds like an ideal case for demand management (bureaucrat-speak for tolls or more draconian - stoplight metering on the ramps) and provision of alternate transportation options (bus, train, bike, or weird stuff - Shweeb is my favorite: http://shweeb.com/).

Make other options attractive enough, and y'all could even tear down the highways and reclaim the center of the city. Inter-city traffic could use Rt 130 or 45 instead.

No idea why I'm making a serious comment on TDWTF, except that I'm a traffic nerd.

cellocgw · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Michael:
That sign is within a few miles of me. Funny thing is...most people here don't think the toll lanes help much at all, and it wasn't worth however many millions of dollars it took to build and maintain all that technology. Atlanta is desperate to solve its bad traffic problems.

Yeah, because putting in a really good public transit system would have been, you know, socialist or something. (PS I'm aware that Atlanta, like many cities is also dealing with suburban sprawl)

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Another thing they may have been trying to prevent is people complaining (and they will) that the toll on the website didn't match the actual toll they had to pay when they traveled over the highway. Besides just complainers and conspiracy theorists, the tolls are variable and there's no real guarantee that the variable tolls won't change between when you check the tolls from your house or office and when you actually get on the highway and have to pay the tolls.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

let's be clear...this idea is to make money...consider it a convenience tax...commuters are not going to arrive/leave work earlier just to avoid pricing...futhermore, georgia's solution highjacked the HOV lane (increased requirements from 2 people to 3 people) which was initially intended to improve air quality...local governments are hurting from funds and instead of rolling back budgets to fit prior income levels, they are rolling out crap like this to tax citizens 2x (once for building and recurring for usage)...truly shamefule

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

stop light metering only works when the road receiving road has good traffic flow...otherwise, you are not moving regardless which is mostly the case

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

cellocgw:
Yeah, because putting in a really good public transit system would have been, you know, socialist or something.

When something is free, people will take more than they need.

When something is free, it is really hard to start a business and make a profit competing with the free product.

Sometimes free things get so overconsumed and crappy that you can actually make a buck selling an alternative to the free garbage. See: private schools.

So our government graciously provides free roads. Well, you still have to pay for them, but you pay whether you use them or not (gas tax doesn't cover the full cost) so might as well use the hell out of them right?

If the roads were not free, and the buses were not free*, and the trains were not free, someone somewhere would figure out how to make a buck by providing the transportation everyone needs.

And someone else would figure out a way to do it better, cheaper, or whatever attracts the most satisfied customers.

And you'd end up with the most efficient transportation system possible -- without shaking down the taxpayers.

But no. Socialism has worked so well everywhere it has been tried (disregarding the millions killed by their own governments) so let's go with that.

OK, you pay a trivial bus or train fare. But taxpayers pick up 90% of the total costs. That's OK though, tax dollars are in abundant and perpetual supply. Until all the rich get sucked dry. Or pack up and go elsewhere. They can afford to move, you know.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

By showing a picture of the sign, people cannot complain when the rate they see on a customized web page differs from the rate on the sign.

It may seem a strange reason, but to me it is the most likely. The express toll lanes in Miami, Florida staggers when signs update as traffic approaches the toll readers. This is done to ensure you get the rate shown on the signs. I could easily see someone complaining that the rate they saw on the web page prior to leaving the office was different than what the sign showed 15-minutes later.

For those interested in statistics, Florida provides information upon request on what tolls where charged when for their express lanes in Miami. Summary reports of this information (along with vehicle usage, etc.) are already published online. I imagine Georgia would do similar upon request as a matter of public record.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Paul:
cellocgw:
Yeah, because putting in a really good public transit system would have been, you know, socialist or something.
When something is free, people will take more than they need.
When something is free, it is really hard to start a business and make a profit competing with the free product.

Sometimes free things get so overconsumed and crappy that you can actually make a buck selling an alternative to the free garbage. See: private schools.

So our government graciously provides free roads. Well, you still have to pay for them, but you pay whether you use them or not (gas tax doesn't cover the full cost) so might as well use the hell out of them right?

If the roads were not free, and the buses were not free*, and the trains were not free, someone somewhere would figure out how to make a buck by providing the transportation everyone needs.

And someone else would figure out a way to do it better, cheaper, or whatever attracts the most satisfied customers.

And you'd end up with the most efficient transportation system possible -- without shaking down the taxpayers.

But no. Socialism has worked so well everywhere it has been tried (disregarding the millions killed by their own governments) so let's go with that.

OK, you pay a trivial bus or train fare. But taxpayers pick up 90% of the total costs. That's OK though, tax dollars are in abundant and perpetual supply. Until all the rich get sucked dry. Or pack up and go elsewhere. They can afford to move, you know.

What a load of bullshit. I assume Paul is your second name Ron?

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Non-GA resident:
I could easily see someone complaining that the rate they saw on the web page prior to leaving the office was different than what the sign showed 15-minutes later.

So put a disclaimer on the web page that says "Rates subject to change without notice."

Mason Wheeler · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Paul:
cellocgw:
Yeah, because putting in a really good public transit system would have been, you know, socialist or something.
When something is free, people will take more than they need.
When something is free, it is really hard to start a business and make a profit competing with the free product.

Sometimes free things get so overconsumed and crappy that you can actually make a buck selling an alternative to the free garbage. See: private schools.

So our government graciously provides free roads. Well, you still have to pay for them, but you pay whether you use them or not (gas tax doesn't cover the full cost) so might as well use the hell out of them right?

If the roads were not free, and the buses were not free*, and the trains were not free, someone somewhere would figure out how to make a buck by providing the transportation everyone needs.

And someone else would figure out a way to do it better, cheaper, or whatever attracts the most satisfied customers.

And you'd end up with the most efficient transportation system possible -- without shaking down the taxpayers.

But no. Socialism has worked so well everywhere it has been tried (disregarding the millions killed by their own governments) so let's go with that.

OK, you pay a trivial bus or train fare. But taxpayers pick up 90% of the total costs. That's OK though, tax dollars are in abundant and perpetual supply. Until all the rich get sucked dry. Or pack up and go elsewhere. They can afford to move, you know.

Sorry, but that argument's full of crap. You see, I'm from the Seattle area.

Used to be, back in the 90s, we had one of the best mass transit systems in the country. It was very affordable and very simple to get from point A to point B, wherever those points may be.

Then along came Tim Eyman. He was full of the sort of theories you hold to here, and he said that taxpayers were paying way too much on their car tab fees. So he got a citizens' initiative on the ballot that would force the DOT to not charge more than $30 for car tab fees for any vehicle. Sounds like a good idea, right? Pay less taxes! Everyone's happy!

...well, almost. Turns out that money was actually being used for something important: subsidizing the transit system. A few people who understood how it worked tried to get the word out, but there are far too many people out there who never learned to think past one degree of cause and effect, so the initiative ended up passing.

The transit budgets were decimated throughout the state, and they had to rework their schedules and routes. Almost overnight, traffic in the region got far worse, because removing buses means putting more cars on the road. Today it takes about 3 times longer to make any non-trivial commute in the Seattle area than it did in 1998.

But at least the drivers are saving money because it's not getting sucked out of their wallets to subsidize freeloaders who don't even drive, right?

Well, not really. Again, that's only thinking in a single degree of cause and effect. With increased traffic congestion comes more time wasted sitting in traffic. With the engine running, burning gas. The money saved per year on car tabs in a lump sum is lost over the course of the year paying for extra gasoline consumption, except that instead of paying for something useful, (lower traffic congestion through transit subsidies,) now it all goes to oil companies instead. We didn't even break even before 9/11. Skyrocketing gas prices since then have made it even worse.

But just try explaining that to a libertarian moron like Tim Eyman. Every few years he comes out with some new plan to reduce car-related taxes and explicitly pigeonhole the funding away from mass transit, because it's supposed to improve things... somehow.

waves hands These aren't the tax revenue you're looking for. Free Markets fix all problems! Invisible hands FTW!

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

It's all stupid:
...truly shamefule

As any fule kno.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Charge the rich an exit tax, lets say 40% of your assets. Problem solved.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

This is better than the parking garage at the university in my town, in which the camera takes static images every 15 seconds, but the shutter speed is faster than the refresh rate of the LCD screen. Half of the time the screen appears blank.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

What's wrong with that? Optocouplers have been known since the sixties.

PiisAWheeL · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Mason Wheeler:
Paul:
cellocgw:
Yeah, because putting in a really good public transit system would have been, you know, socialist or something.
When something is free, people will take more than they need.
When something is free, it is really hard to start a business and make a profit competing with the free product.

Sometimes free things get so overconsumed and crappy that you can actually make a buck selling an alternative to the free garbage. See: private schools.

So our government graciously provides free roads. Well, you still have to pay for them, but you pay whether you use them or not (gas tax doesn't cover the full cost) so might as well use the hell out of them right?

If the roads were not free, and the buses were not free*, and the trains were not free, someone somewhere would figure out how to make a buck by providing the transportation everyone needs.

And someone else would figure out a way to do it better, cheaper, or whatever attracts the most satisfied customers.

And you'd end up with the most efficient transportation system possible -- without shaking down the taxpayers.

But no. Socialism has worked so well everywhere it has been tried (disregarding the millions killed by their own governments) so let's go with that.

OK, you pay a trivial bus or train fare. But taxpayers pick up 90% of the total costs. That's OK though, tax dollars are in abundant and perpetual supply. Until all the rich get sucked dry. Or pack up and go elsewhere. They can afford to move, you know.

Sorry, but that argument's full of crap. You see, I'm from the Seattle area.

Used to be, back in the 90s, we had one of the best mass transit systems in the country. It was very affordable and very simple to get from point A to point B, wherever those points may be.

Then along came Tim Eyman. He was full of the sort of theories you hold to here, and he said that taxpayers were paying way too much on their car tab fees. So he got a citizens' initiative on the ballot that would force the DOT to not charge more than $30 for car tab fees for any vehicle. Sounds like a good idea, right? Pay less taxes! Everyone's happy!

...well, almost. Turns out that money was actually being used for something important: subsidizing the transit system. A few people who understood how it worked tried to get the word out, but there are far too many people out there who never learned to think past one degree of cause and effect, so the initiative ended up passing.

The transit budgets were decimated throughout the state, and they had to rework their schedules and routes. Almost overnight, traffic in the region got far worse, because removing buses means putting more cars on the road. Today it takes about 3 times longer to make any non-trivial commute in the Seattle area than it did in 1998.

But at least the drivers are saving money because it's not getting sucked out of their wallets to subsidize freeloaders who don't even drive, right?

Well, not really. Again, that's only thinking in a single degree of cause and effect. With increased traffic congestion comes more time wasted sitting in traffic. With the engine running, burning gas. The money saved per year on car tabs in a lump sum is lost over the course of the year paying for extra gasoline consumption, except that instead of paying for something useful, (lower traffic congestion through transit subsidies,) now it all goes to oil companies instead. We didn't even break even before 9/11. Skyrocketing gas prices since then have made it even worse.

But just try explaining that to a libertarian moron like Tim Eyman. Every few years he comes out with some new plan to reduce car-related taxes and explicitly pigeonhole the funding away from mass transit, because it's supposed to improve things... somehow.

waves hands These aren't the tax revenue you're looking for. Free Markets fix all problems! Invisible hands FTW!

After the mass transit system went free market, was there competition? If you have no competition you have no free market, and you are left to suffer with the 1 person providing the service, as shitty as they want, charging as much as they want. Then you have a shitty service provided by a monopoly and people use their cars as an alternative.

Look at any industry with fair market competition and tell me otherwise.

On the flipside, we do need to spend SOME money socially to have a civilized society. If I had to pay a monthly fee for independant police or fire dept, I'd be screwed. As a civilized society we do need to draw a line and set a bare minimum.

The only social program that I think needs to go (that no one else really cares about) is mail. I don't need that garbage, its obsolete. Sell it off to 3rd party and let somebody else compete fairly with ups and fedex.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Paul:
Blah blah blah.

The US interstate system is enormously efficient in terms of the actual free-market commerce it enables. Look at just one important aspect of the US economy: food production. The ability to move fertilizer, feed, crops, animals, processed foods, and other agricultural products large distances in bulk to anywhere these products are needed forms the backbone upon which the rest of the economy works (unfed people == bad economy, everywhere, always). Libertarians in the US should take a moment to realize just how fucking near-perfect the current state of things is in the US for them to conduct free-market enterprise, in part because the government provides so much goddamn infrastructure and stability. There has never been a time or place better for libertarians, and they spend all this effort griping that they have to pay taxes. Get to work, produce something valuable, and sell it: you will be rewarded better than kings 200 years ago.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Paul:
But no. Socialism has worked so well everywhere it has been tried (disregarding the millions killed by their own governments) so let's go with that.

And your corporatocracy is working out quite peachy, i see.

pauly · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

There is no WTF here. They already have the video feed. I would rather see this to get an idea of traffic congestion than some numbers listed on a website.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Anon:
Paul:
...
What a load of bullshit. I assume Paul is your second name Ron?

And I call your bullshit bullshit. And then you call me another name. And we get nowhere.

So which sentence, in particular, did you find false? And why?

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

I think everybody has missed the point in the design here. In a system like this it is important to get the data from the original source of truth and use whatever API is available. The sign is all knowing. It has decided the price. And the only way to see the price is to look at its UI.

DWalker59 · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

BrianJPugh:
Sounds like they are taking a page from the Trojan Room coffee pot: http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot
For the spam filter, the idea was to put a camera pointing at a coffee pot in another room and stream photos to your desktop so you can check if your coffee run will result in coffee in your cup.

Which has the unintended consequence that whoever gets the most desperate ends up making a pot, then all the lazy people rush there to get coffee, and it's empty again.

Really, people, a trip to the coffee pot WILL result in "coffee in your cup" if you're not too much of a lazy jerk to make a new pot if it's empty. Making a pot of coffee is not that hard!

If you think that you can't spare 5 minutes while it brews, just take a deep breath, and maybe do deep-knee bends or pushups for 5 minutes.

The idea of streaming the full-status of a coffee pot is silly.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Mason Wheeler:
I'm from the Seattle area. ... traffic in the region got far worse ... Today it takes about 3 times longer ... more time wasted sitting in traffic ... even worse ... Free Markets fix all problems!

So, just to be clear, the horrible awful traffic you have in Seattle today... that's a free market transit system, or provided by the government?

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Frank:
Charge the rich an exit tax, lets say 40% of your assets. Problem solved.

And who will you eat next year?

(P.S. The rich have lawyers, accountants, and congressmen. They're not going to pay.)

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Jockamo:
Paul:
But no. Socialism has worked so well everywhere it has been tried (disregarding the millions killed by their own governments) so let's go with that.

And your corporatocracy is working out quite peachy, i see.

How many corporations have killed you lately?

Socialist / Communist / Marxist governments survive as long as there are people to chew up and digest. Then they collapse.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Some time ago, I worked for a company that put a bid on a toll congestion price system for major metropolitan on the US east cost. I suggested that instead of building a computer system which monitors the amount of traffic going through the tolls and then adjusts the price using some algorithm, we should suggest the following:

Each toll plaza has multiple booths going in each direction. The right most booth should have the lowest price and the left most both should have the highest price with each booth in between having prices in between with fixed increments. Drivers can choose how much they want to pay by choosing which booth to use. As traffic increases, the right side booths will fill up, and drivers who do not want to wait can use the booths closer to the left side and pay more. No need to for a complicated computer system or algorithm.

For some reason, product management choose not to include this option as part of our bid.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

In France we use le minitel. It is slower but real time. Take that, world. Han han han!

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Ones Self:
... right most booth should have the lowest price and the left most both should have the highest price with each booth in between having prices in between with fixed increments. ...

That's fairly ingenious. The only worry I see is people from the left side trying to quickly merge right to get to the cheap booths while people from the right try to merge left to get out of the traffic. Perhaps three booths for every two lanes that go high, medium, low, repeat so that you merge less. You get less range in tolls but higher usability.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

I don't see why you call it daily WTF. RT camera image is more trustworthy and gives more information than just data from the table. First, it eliminates possibility of certain types of bugs that may lead to discrepancy between data on the site and data on the sign. Second, it's just smaller amount of coding: less code = less bugs. Third, if the sign itself is not functioning (which effectively means the road is free: you can't charge tolls when the sign is not functioning) then you automatically get this info on the website as well. Fourth, by implementing it this way, you automatically get a sign video monitoring system, which is probably good/necessary by itself (so the work is already done, why not to reuse it for informational purposes as well?).

da Doctah · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Caffeine:
Michael:
My former employer was an earthquake enthusiast -- professionally. So he naturally thought everyone worldwide would want to see real-time updates from his (digital) seismometer. The solution?
Put a webcam looking at the pen that draws squiggly lines on the paper, of course.

Should win an award for the world's dullest webcam, except nobody ever noticed it.
So if there is a significant earthquake does the camera shake?

No, but it does cut over to the other camera, which shows a cat playing a guitar.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Lol GDOT. The Real WTF is a while back they ran of or fired all of their IT employees that had a clue and imported a bunch of brain-dead Indians. I wonder if the IT head Jeff Hill and his unqualified ditsy "enterprise architect" Debbie Poss are still getting it on. One of these days that whole place will end up on the wrong end of a Fox 5 news investigation.

Politics is really big with GDOT, so it is quite likely that the pricing is considered "proprietary" information, and this is their workaround for providing that info.

Coyne · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Michael:
My former employer was an earthquake enthusiast -- professionally. So he naturally thought everyone worldwide would want to see real-time updates from his (digital) seismometer. The solution?
Put a webcam looking at the pen that draws squiggly lines on the paper, of course.

Should win an award for the world's dullest webcam, except nobody ever noticed it.

No way. The world's dullest webcam is here.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Michael:
That sign is within a few miles of me. Funny thing is...most people here don't think the toll lanes help much at all, and it wasn't worth however many millions of dollars it took to build and maintain all that technology. Atlanta is desperate to solve its bad traffic problems.

Well, part of the problem is that they are still competing with free. And most people are probably used to the traffic enough that they've adjusted their commutes to compensate.

Additionally, the article didn't really point out if the rates went up or down during points of high congestion. If the toll lanes became more expensive during high congestion, then it would dissuade people even more to fork over the money, thus not relieving congestion at all.

All toll lanes really do is remove those drivers who can afford to pay more from the congestion, and that's not really a lot. Most drivers are already squeezed by high gas prices, and probably could not afford to add expenses to their daily commutes.

Mason Wheeler · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Paul:
Jockamo:
Paul:
But no. Socialism has worked so well everywhere it has been tried (disregarding the millions killed by their own governments) so let's go with that.

And your corporatocracy is working out quite peachy, i see.
How many corporations have killed you lately?

Socialist / Communist / Marxist governments survive as long as there are people to chew up and digest. Then they collapse.

Whereas corporations tend to ship their killing overseas to countries that don't enjoy our standards of freedom, in order to keep the negative press down. (See: Coca-Cola in South America, Apple in China, diamond cartels in Africa, fruit companies in the Caribbean, etc.)

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Robert Hanson:
Here in Minneapolis, the minimum express lane rate is $0.25, even at 9:30 at night when the roads are wide open. How does Georgia possibly make money charging people $0.03 to use the express lane? It's got to cost more than that to execute a transaction, when you factor in the cost of the infrastructure needed to provide the system (including the cost of the camera pointed at the sign!)

Well, here in California, the express lanes can only be used by those with the FasTrack transponders (the little dohicky you put in your car that automatically registers when you go on toll roads and charges you appropriately). The charges from those are all batched up, and the bill gets sent to you at the end of the month, or you fund an account with so much ahead of time. Thus, per-transaction costs are not really an issue, unless you only use it once.

Mason Wheeler · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Paul:
Mason Wheeler:
I'm from the Seattle area. ... traffic in the region got far worse ... Today it takes about 3 times longer ... more time wasted sitting in traffic ... even worse ... Free Markets fix all problems!
So, just to be clear, the horrible awful traffic you have in Seattle today... that's a free market transit system, or provided by the government?

There are at 6 major transit agencies in the Puget Sound area, with a significant degree of overlap in service areas, so that many (but not all) areas are served by two or even three agencies. All but two of them (King County Metro and Everett Transit) are run by private companies, and those two have significant amounts of overlap with other agencies in their service, so they have free market competition, probably more than any of the others. (And they both tend to provide better service at lower fare costs than the competition.)

But what does that have to do with the issue at hand, which is that reckless tax-cutting caused the transit agencies to be underfunded, putting more cars on the road? The horrible awful traffic isn't the buses' fault, it's all the cars that are there because there are no buses available. (That's a little like saying that if you have six fires at once, in a town with only four fire trucks, the two houses that end up burning down are the fire department's fault.)

dkf · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Paul:
And you'd end up with the most efficient transportation system possible -- without shaking down the taxpayers.

Except that what actually happens is that the transport providers get together and agree to charge as much as they think the market will bear, so the taxpayers… err… traveling citizens still gets shaken down. Put in place regulations/laws to stop that, and the market isn't free any more, yes? You're hurtling down the slippery slope to communism!

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Paul:
When something is free, it is really hard to start a business and make a profit competing with the free product.

So? I fail to see why someone's ease and ability to make profit is any of my concern.

If the roads were not free, and the buses were not free*, and the trains were not free, someone somewhere would figure out how to make a buck by providing the transportation everyone needs.

By "transportation everyone needs", you mean those that can afford to pay for it, and those who are poor can go fuck themselves, because they're not profitable. Right?

And someone else would figure out a way to do it better, cheaper, or whatever attracts the most satisfied customers.

Got anything to actually back that up? Or is this more of that "government is always inefficient, and private enterprise is always efficient" bullshit that you people like to spout off with nothing but your feelings to back it up?

And you'd end up with the most efficient transportation system possible -- without shaking down the taxpayers.

Again, not bloody likely. Further, you use roads even if you don't have a car. How do you think any of your goods get to where you can buy them?

But no. Socialism has worked so well everywhere it has been tried (disregarding the millions killed by their own governments) so let's go with that.

Because capitalism has never resulted in the deaths of anyone, right? The Deepwater Horizon people weren't killed because of their boss's capitalistic need to cut corners and therefore make more profit.

* OK, you pay a trivial bus or train fare. But taxpayers pick up 90% of the total costs. That's OK though, tax dollars are in abundant and perpetual supply. Until all the rich get sucked dry. Or pack up and go elsewhere. They can afford to move, you know.

And what's your alternative? Force the people taking the bus to drive to their destination? Congratulations, you've just increased traffic. Of course, that's only for those that can afford to get their own car. The rest of the poor are completely and utterly fucked, not able to go anywhere. But of course, you don't care about them.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Mason Wheeler:
Paul:
Mason Wheeler:
I'm from the Seattle area. ... traffic in the region got far worse ... Today it takes about 3 times longer ... more time wasted sitting in traffic ... even worse ... Free Markets fix all problems!
So, just to be clear, the horrible awful traffic you have in Seattle today... that's a free market transit system, or provided by the government?

There are at 6 major transit agencies in the Puget Sound area, with a significant degree of overlap in service areas, so that many (but not all) areas are served by two or even three agencies. All but two of them (King County Metro and Everett Transit) are run by private companies, and those two have significant amounts of overlap with other agencies in their service, so they have free market competition, probably more than any of the others. (And they both tend to provide better service at lower fare costs than the competition.)

But what does that have to do with the issue at hand, which is that reckless tax-cutting caused the transit agencies to be underfunded, putting more cars on the road? The horrible awful traffic isn't the buses' fault, it's all the cars that are there because there are no buses available. (That's a little like saying that if you have six fires at once, in a town with only four fire trucks, the two houses that end up burning down are the fire department's fault.)

Oh, stop feeding this Paul guy. He clearly has an only vehicle and happily rides in it.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

PiisAWheeL:
Mason Wheeler:
Paul:
cellocgw:
Yeah, because putting in a really good public transit system would have been, you know, socialist or something.
When something is free, people will take more than they need.
When something is free, it is really hard to start a business and make a profit competing with the free product.

Sometimes free things get so overconsumed and crappy that you can actually make a buck selling an alternative to the free garbage. See: private schools.

So our government graciously provides free roads. Well, you still have to pay for them, but you pay whether you use them or not (gas tax doesn't cover the full cost) so might as well use the hell out of them right?

If the roads were not free, and the buses were not free*, and the trains were not free, someone somewhere would figure out how to make a buck by providing the transportation everyone needs.

And someone else would figure out a way to do it better, cheaper, or whatever attracts the most satisfied customers.

And you'd end up with the most efficient transportation system possible -- without shaking down the taxpayers.

But no. Socialism has worked so well everywhere it has been tried (disregarding the millions killed by their own governments) so let's go with that.

OK, you pay a trivial bus or train fare. But taxpayers pick up 90% of the total costs. That's OK though, tax dollars are in abundant and perpetual supply. Until all the rich get sucked dry. Or pack up and go elsewhere. They can afford to move, you know.

Sorry, but that argument's full of crap. You see, I'm from the Seattle area.

Used to be, back in the 90s, we had one of the best mass transit systems in the country. It was very affordable and very simple to get from point A to point B, wherever those points may be.

Then along came Tim Eyman. He was full of the sort of theories you hold to here, and he said that taxpayers were paying way too much on their car tab fees. So he got a citizens' initiative on the ballot that would force the DOT to not charge more than $30 for car tab fees for any vehicle. Sounds like a good idea, right? Pay less taxes! Everyone's happy!

...well, almost. Turns out that money was actually being used for something important: subsidizing the transit system. A few people who understood how it worked tried to get the word out, but there are far too many people out there who never learned to think past one degree of cause and effect, so the initiative ended up passing.

The transit budgets were decimated throughout the state, and they had to rework their schedules and routes. Almost overnight, traffic in the region got far worse, because removing buses means putting more cars on the road. Today it takes about 3 times longer to make any non-trivial commute in the Seattle area than it did in 1998.

But at least the drivers are saving money because it's not getting sucked out of their wallets to subsidize freeloaders who don't even drive, right?

Well, not really. Again, that's only thinking in a single degree of cause and effect. With increased traffic congestion comes more time wasted sitting in traffic. With the engine running, burning gas. The money saved per year on car tabs in a lump sum is lost over the course of the year paying for extra gasoline consumption, except that instead of paying for something useful, (lower traffic congestion through transit subsidies,) now it all goes to oil companies instead. We didn't even break even before 9/11. Skyrocketing gas prices since then have made it even worse.

But just try explaining that to a libertarian moron like Tim Eyman. Every few years he comes out with some new plan to reduce car-related taxes and explicitly pigeonhole the funding away from mass transit, because it's supposed to improve things... somehow.

waves hands These aren't the tax revenue you're looking for. Free Markets fix all problems! Invisible hands FTW!
After the mass transit system went free market, was there competition? If you have no competition you have no free market, and you are left to suffer with the 1 person providing the service, as shitty as they want, charging as much as they want. Then you have a shitty service provided by a monopoly and people use their cars as an alternative.

And what if nobody actually wants to compete? Who would actually want to provide mass transit in the city? Most of the people you're going to get are lower income, and they don't provide much profit. You can try to attract higher income riders, but they have their own cars, so they're not going to give you much of a chance.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Paul:
Mason Wheeler:
I'm from the Seattle area. ... traffic in the region got far worse ... Today it takes about 3 times longer ... more time wasted sitting in traffic ... even worse ... Free Markets fix all problems!
So, just to be clear, the horrible awful traffic you have in Seattle today... that's a free market transit system, or provided by the government?

It sounded like it was the direct result of some idiot thinking that free market systems are the perfect way to handle everything. The government WAS handling it quite fine, until some dumbass who hates government decided he should get into government.

So really, it's entirely the libertarian's fault. They fucked with a system that was working perfectly, for no reason other than their asinine ideology. They didn't even have any proof that things would better.

Anketam · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Paul:
Anon:
Paul:
...
What a load of bullshit. I assume Paul is your second name Ron?
And I call your bullshit bullshit. And then you call me another name. And we get nowhere.
So which sentence, in particular, did you find false? And why?

Going to either extreme wont work. The critical thing with government is that for every $1 you give the government they will generate less than $1 in value no matter what the task is. There is nothing wrong with this since the government is not intended to be profitable, and has responsibilities that generate non tangible value (like security).

In the cases where corporations can perform things as effictively as the government while generating profit they should be given those responsibilities (like UPS and Fedex versus USPS). However, there are many things that corporations currently can't do profitibly while maintaining the necessary effectiveness, like infrastructure. Because of this the responsibility for infrastructure should stay with the government.

If in the future a corporation generates a new technology that totally revolutionalizes transport to the point they could provide infrastructure to a city and make money then the government should no longer do it.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

From a security viewpoint, it's a perfect way of allowing internet access to the fare info without any possibility of an intruder screwing around with the actual fares.

Of course, that is assuming that the computer controlling the fare info and the computer controlling the webcam are isolated from one another. That's something I'm not willing to assume without evidence.

bgodot · 2012-06-26 Reply Admin

That must be why Microsoft runs it's private employees only bus fleet ('The Connector') with the drop in service from Metro.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

If the point is to encourage people to shift their driving from busy times to less-busy times, then a real-time pricing system is almost useless. In order to shift their drive times, people have to be able to plan in advance. Maybe some people live right next to the exit ramp so they can watch the price on their computer and then when they see it hits a certain level, run out to their car and get on the highway before the price goes back up. Even at that, I presume the busiest times are when people are going to work or coming home. Do they assume you can just go to work whenever you feel like it without arranging anything with the boss in advance?

If you really want to change people's driving behavior, you would have to tell them what the rates are well in advance, and let them see when rates will be high and when they will be low. To make it practical, it should be fairly simple: not a hundred rates at all different times of day, but a small number that someone could easily comprehend and remember.

That is, the ideal is not a real-time display, whether done with a video feed or a database lookup. The ideal to achieve the stated goal is a simple chart that says "midnight to 6:00 am: 25 cents; 6:00 am to 9:00 am: 50 cents; 9:00 am to 4:00 pm: 35 cents;" etc.

2012-06-26 Reply Admin

Chris-Mouse:
From a security viewpoint, it's a perfect way of allowing internet access to the fare info without any possibility of an intruder screwing around with the actual fares.
Of course, that is assuming that the computer controlling the fare info and the computer controlling the webcam are isolated from one another. That's something I'm not willing to assume without evidence.

Who says a hacker couldn't replace the images on the web site with video from another time of day, or with a video doctored to show different amounts?

Peachy Real Time

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