🚀 go-pugleaf

> The answer is to increase the taxes on gas by A LOT.
> Vince

No! That is most definately *NOT* the answer. Each gallon of gas I buy
in CA is taxed at apporximately 45 cents to the gallon. Considering that
gas is now as high as $1.50 for 87 Octane in some places, I find that
this is a key example of OVERTAXATION. What needs to happen is Public
transportation needs to be 

	a> more accessible.
	b>more efficient.
and 	c> safer. 

In the areas around where I live, the buses, BART, light rail, etc. are
all shoody at best.  The bus system only runs to a certain time and
often a 20 minute car drive can turn into a 3 hour public transportation
nightmare.  Bus stops are often quite far from wherever the destination
may lie, and are most of the time insecure. I pity the small defenseless
woman who would have to wait for a BART train in North Richmond only to
take a bus full of vagrants to get to where she's going.

But this is only part of the problem. People need to realize the value
of the diamond lanes. I am one of those people who must commute 100+
miles five days a week to get to work. However I carpool with as many as
four others to get to work, thereby reducing my overall mileage to
somewhere between 100 miles a week (if you average it out). On my daily
journey to work I'd say I see 8 out of every 10 cars with only 1
passenger in them. Now I understand that not everyone has the same place
to be going to which is why more people don't carpool, but think of all
of the extra wear and tear that does to our hiways, which in the end
results in higher driving costs for everyone. I can't say that I have
the answers to California's freeway woes, but there is definately a
better way of structuring it to make the system better.

Problem is, is that it's like DOS...you can't make an Operating System
better byu patch something up that's already inefficent.

Comments, retorts, flames, gladly welomed. :)

Brian