🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jun06.190314.169257@zeus.calpoly.edu>, jwest@zeus.calpoly.edu (Jason Steven West) writes:
> A question; What is the compaired cost to the loss of productive time,
> building showers and lockers, and roadway maintainence, verses the
> health benifits, better land utilization (less need for parking space),
> and the cost of vechicle (including maintaince)?

One data point--I'd lose about 30-40 minutes per day (car, vs. actual data
riding to/from work for about a year last year) just from riding. Personally,
I'd want to shower three times a day instead of once (sometimes twice)
(once after getting up, once after arriving at work, and once after getting
home). This is commuting from (roughly) Central & Castro in MVW to the
Palo Alto airport (at the far end of Embarcadero). With the extra showering,
call it 45 minutes per day, being generous to our cycling bretheren.

Since it can't come off my work time, it has to come off my personal time.
That's about 185 hours per year (@ 45 minutes/day). Reality check: I get
3 weeks vacation per year, which is 120 hours (8 hours/day).

Sorry, folks; I'll buy an electric car, but cycling isn't an option.
Public transit could be, but the bus system in this part of Palo Alto
is a mess.

BTW, on the weather: I grew up in St. Louis and Washington, D.C., so
I understand hot and humid. The weather here is *not* the equivalent
of air-conditioned, as one netter put it; more like D.C. in early June.
It does get hot and humid here, regularly, during the spring and summer.
Autumn is almost idyllic, and what passes for winter is usually comfortable,
but is often punctuated by days or weeks of rain.

> Also isn't the time spent *changing and showering* just transfered to the
> destination?

I think you add at least one (and probably two) showering occasions.

> Willing to listen and learn.

I'll add some fuel to the fire, although a bit of a leap from the
charter of ba.transportation: what is the expected lifespan of the
human conciousness; that is, how many years of mental clarity can one
expect to have? It's not affected by diet, as far as I can tell
(except for extremes of drug consumption), although the mother's
diet may affect the formation of the myelin sheath over the nerves.
Exercise certainly doesn't seem to be a factor. So the question is,
if everyone in the country started a healthy diet and exercise regimen
that enabled them to live to 100, would they cease to be concious
humans at 75/85/95? What does that do to our burden on limited
planetary resources?

Steve

-- 
Stephen C. Fenwick /Sr. Systems Engineer |  fenwick@clipper.ingr.com (work)
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