Reply #42: There are factories that can be in neighborhoods where workers live. [View All]

With today's pollution controls that is. There will always be jobs that aren't conducive to placement in population centers. One of the ways to address worker transport is vanpooling or company bus from where the workers live to where the jobs are. Factories that work on traditional shifts are the most likely to benefit from this sort of mass transit. There have been demonstration projects to test out just such an approach. One from the mid 1990s, partially sponsored by HUD,was specifically an anti-poverty program aimed at matching low income workers in cities with jobs in the suburbs and outlying areas where employers were clamoring for workers. In one site I recall that all it took to make a good match was for the county bus service to extend two runs for an additional hour, thereby having service for the second shift. In another city where running traditional buses to the suburb job corridor wasn't practical, a vanpooling system was set up with two or three pick up locations in the city taking workers out to the factory.

We have evolved into a car-centric culture over a long period and evolving away from it will take time too. It would happen much easier and with less inconvenience if we made a commitment to do so rather than continuing to pretend that single occupant cars are the best way to organize our lives. Traffic jams are a way of life even in many less populated areas these day. We just can't build roads fast enough to sustain the commuting patterns we have now, and in many cases we can't build roads at all without displacing many residents and businesses.


On edit: and yes, commitment means it will cost money and that money will probably come in the form of taxes but with any luck we will tax in the least regressive way.