🚀 go-pugleaf

leguerrl@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Le Guerrier Louis-Luc) writes:

> I live in a suburban area, I work downtown a large city, and I don't use
> a car. I prefer the train. Now we must work on railing some highways, and
> building more walking, cycling, and small local railways, to help us
> getting to the "main" railways that go downtown.  
> 
> We should focus on bicycle trailers, tricycles and other human vehicles
> to transport normal personal goods,, and
> use horses to carry heavy loads to/from the railways (to replace trucks).

Le Guerrier's proposal expresses a moderately widespread sentiment.  I 
would like to see it done experimentally at Government capital expense 
but without subsidy of running expenses.  Would a city of 100,000 suffice,
or does the idea require 500,000?

There could either be a new city built from scratch or an existing
city could be taken over for the experiment.  If the latter, the
inhabitants commuters from the suburbs who didn't like the new way of
life would have to be bought out.  I am one who wouldn't live or work
in such a city, but for a suitable price I would go away.

Horses take a lot of space, eat a lot of feed, and require a lot of
people to take care of them.  In the 1890s New York had 100,000
horses, but unless you drastically reduced the amount of goods used, a
larger number of horses per thousand people would be required.  

Around our way, it is mostly immigrants from Mexico who feed the
horses and shovel the manure.  When they learn enough English they get
jobs they like better.  Shoveling manure has always been considered
onerous.  One of the labors of Hercules was to clean the Augean
stables.  He did it by running a river through the stables.  I doubt
that the EPA would allow that today.

Le Guerrier City could also be serviced by poor immigrants.  Besides 
taking care of horses, there would also have to be pedicab drivers to
take old people and small children around.  A more socialist solution
would have all able-bodied people spending a day a week shoveling
manure and operating pedicabs.

Would personal horses be allowed?  Note that horses are more expensive
to use than cars.  At least the fraction of the population with horses
in the last century was very much smaller than the fraction owning
cars today.  Probably only the upper middle class would be able to
afford them.

I await Le Guerrier's elaboration of the proposal for Le Guerrier
City.  Maybe others with similar sentiments would help him.  Keppler
perhaps?

We could again have rail cars marked, "Quarante hommes, huit chevaux".

-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.