No Privately Owned Cars By 2030?

Hey, look: The executive director of PenTrans (Pennsylvanians for Transportation Solutions. Why only one ‘n’?) says we might not have privately owned cars by 2030.

How well do you think some of these “alternative” modes of travel are doing in Philadelphia?

You have PhillyCarShare where it’s working out so well that you have a private provider coming to Philly to compete with them. You have many market-based solutions to do these kinds of things and conserve energy. It may come a point where in 2030, people aren’t using privately owned cars.

Far out, man. I don’t know; I feel like most of my friends would have a car if (a) there was a place to park it and (b) they could afford one. And some people don’t even drive? Trust me: If they give me a license to drive, they can give anyone a license to drive. Don’t worry: Chances are, you won’t even hit anybody. I’m a bad driver, and even I only hit one person, and it was just with my side mirror.

Working on a new transit age? [Metro]

Amtrak To Screw Up Entire East Coast

Everything seems to be going pretty smoothly for SEPTA recently. The transit agency raised fares without any riots, it’s planning to update to a smart card system for fare collection and it now has state money coming in. Nothing is that easy, though; SEPTA might have to shut down six regional rail lines due to a possible Amtrak strike beginning on Jan. 30.

The regional rail lines that run on Amtrak lines are: R1 Airport, R2 Newark, R5 Paoli, R6 Cynwyd, R7 Trenton and R8 Chestnut Hill West. (The Inquirer says it would affect 54,000 daily rail riders.) Similarly, NJ Transit would have to shut down its Northeast Corridor Line, which runs from Trenton to New York and is by far the best way to get into New York City. (SEPTA to NJ Transit to Penn Station. When I started college, this was actually pretty cheap, too!)

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Mooching Liberal Fat Cats Riding Subsidized Trains

Local suburban angry conservative columnist Tony Phyrillas is angry at liberals! Of course, you say. Yes, but only this time he’s angry at liberals for mass transit. (According to his bio on the prestigious WEBCommentary.com, Phyrillas was also “named one of the leading Greek-American bloggers in the world by Odyssey magazine.”)

According to Phyrillas, SEPTA shouldn’t be subsidized because the only people who take it are rich bastards who could afford to pay more to take the train into town.

I don’t know how much the train ride into Center City costs, but let’s say it’s $10 a day. Can a family making $200,000 a year afford to pay $20 a day to get to work? I think they can, but why should they when Pennsylvania taxpayers pick up the tab?

Ahh, the ol’ strategy of admitting you didn’t bother to look anything up in the first sentence up there. I wonder if the other top Greek-American bloggers know to look up things?

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Advanced Gadgets Available, We Just Don’t Want Them

The Inquirer has a big piece today on commuting, and how the commute has lengthened in the past 50 years or so. The morning train ride from Chestnut Hill to Center City used to take 28 minutes, now it’s 34. A flight from PHL to LAX used to be 5 hours, now it’s 6. Everybody sits in traffic everywhere. Et cetera.

Apparently, though, we could solve these problems if we consumers would just want to solve them, says grandson-of-the-former-mayor Richardson Dilworth, a Drexel assistant prof:

“A lot of the bottlenecks are social,” Dilworth said. “We could make cars fully automatic, where a driver just plugs in a destination, but auto manufacturers don’t think there is adequate demand, so they haven’t developed that technology. Electric cars are being bottlenecked by the refueling issue.”

Wait, we could do all of that? I want those items! And where the hell is my hoverboard?

Editor’s note: Please do not Google Image Search “jetsons” while safe search is off. Do it for your own eyes.

Farther, faster? Not anymore [Inquirer]

East India Turnpike Company?

Are you ready for some company in Hong Kong to own Pennsylvania’s longest road? Ed Rendell officially announced today that the Pennsylvania Turnpike is for sale.

The sale or lease of a state toll highway isn’t all that rare nowadays and companies have been eyeing the turnpike for about a year now. Interested parties have until Dec. 22 to submit proposals. If the state sold the turnpike, it could make anywhere from $2 to $30 billion dollars, which would then be put in a trust and used to fund various transportation projects.

The Inquirer’s Larry King writes that the Rendell said any buyer/leaser would have to agree to protections for current workers, adhere to a maintenance schedule and limits on toll increases.

A recent state study said that the state needed $1.7 billion more a year to stabilize and improve its roads and public transportation systems. Does this mean we’ll be seeing the Schuylkill Valley Metro anytime soon? Let’s hope so, but let’s see what our foreign investors want to pay us first.

Pa. Turnpike for sale or rent [Inquirer]

Urine-Soaked Station Plans To Add Butlers

Here’s the dilemma: You’re on a PATCO train, heading back to Lindenwold after a hard day at the office. But you’re stuck. You’re carrying some dry cleaning with you — you know why, you sly dog! — but you need to get it done before heading home to your apartment for a candlelit dinner for two. And you had to work late at the office, and you’re kind of stuck, but you really need to get these clothes dry cleaned, and…

… looks like your entire evening just went up in smoke. (See, because you were going to be at your house, where it’s still legal to smoke in Jersey and Philly, at least for now.)

But before this extended metaphor begins to make even less sense: Fear not! New Jersey transit is here to save the day! Or, maybe. Beginnig today, the Inquirer reports, PATCO workers will ask commuters as they exit or board trains if they would use a concierge service if one set up shop at the station.

Lindenwold is at the end of the PATCO High-Speed Line, and also a stop on the “Gambler’s Express” to Atlantic City. There’s already a concierge service in ritzy Maplewood in North Jersey, and the Lindenwold stop is a bit dingy, especially for the busiest stop on the line.

But, well, it seems like the station needs a few things more than a concierge service:

“Why don’t they put a coffee shop in this station instead? I’ve even thought of doing that myself,” said [Mark] Johnson, an Amtrak worker. “In the mornings you could sell coffee here as fast as you could pour it.” [...]

[George] Wolf, with an NYPD cap pulled over his eyes, said he would never use a concierge. He had more immediate concerns.

“What this station needs is a 24-hour bathroom for starters,” Wolf said. “It smells OK today, but usually the tunnels here stink to high hell because there’s no place else to go. Trash cans would be nice, too. I mean, just look at all the garbage blowing around.”

There’s only one way to solve this: A concierge service that brings you little cups to piss in.

Will Jeeves serve in Lindenwold? [Inquirer]

Leftovers: Buy, Eagles Fans, Buy

• The Eagles will be selling 1500 standing-room only tickets for each home game tomorrow morning, sending IT departments into a frenzy when they realize that every single person at the office is constantly refreshing the Eagles homepage. [Daily News]

• John Perzel has proposed a huge increase in police officers all over the state, including 1,300 new cops in Philly alone. Perzel: “We’re here today to send a clear message to the drug-dealing thugs, the illegal gun-pushers, and all those responsible for terrorizing our neighborhoods and communities - your days are numbered.” Drug-dealing thugs had a mixed reaction to the news. [Inquirer]

• Herb Denenberg answers the tough questions: “Question: Can an insurance company refuse to insure my dog?” [The Evening Bulletin]

• Is it any coincidence that when a Northeast Philadelphia native is in space, the astronauts lose a bolt into the abyss? I think not. [AP/CNN.com]

• Now you can get to Harrisburg in 90 minutes instead of two hours! Yay? Hurrah? Does anyone actually travel to Harrisburg? [AP/Philly.com]

Quickies: Gay Bar

• In legal news, the Philadelphia Bar Association has come out against the PIMP Act — that’s the “Pennsylvania Marriage Protection Act” — which would ban same-sex marriages in the commonwealth. Good for them. It’s hard out here for a PIMP Act, &c. [KYW 1060]

• So why did the cops shut down a party at Transit two hours early? Nobody seems to know. [fiftyone:fiftyone]

• The New York Sun — kind of the Evening Bulletin of New York — reports that Scooter Libby testified President Bush okayed a leak to the New York Times, putting Bush directly in the chain of events that led to the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name. Like, whoa. [Gawker (the Sun website is down)]

• Can someone (seriously) explain this anti-Jeopardy! piece? I’m totally baffled. [Early Word]

• In honor of Jimmy Rollins’ 38-game hitting streak, here’s a statheaded look at both his and Joe DiMaggio’s streaks. Very good piece. [Sportszilla]

• City Council President Anna Verna is the first person to get angry at Rick Mariano! Of course, she’s just mad that he sent a letter home saying his office would be “fully staffed.” Guess the councilwoman doesn’t want people to know that you can do her job from prison. [KYW 1060]