A shocking title I know. But the former was perhaps the most startling and thought provoking concept I learned in college so many years ago...and the latter occurred to me as a child.
Prior to my life as a mortgage broker, I had an environmental economics professor who first raised this concept about murder to our class as a means to brutally illustrate the point that every benefit (reducing an unwanted event) comes with a cost, and eventually there is some balance that must be struck (an equilibrium). The principle is that certainly no sane person in society wants to have to tolerate any murders, however the cost to eliminate this tragic reality would come at the sacrifice of nearly all of our freedom. How many additional police would it take, cameras, surveillance, etc. You get the idea. We don't WANT murder, but we have our limits as to the cost we will bear to eliminate it from society.
Let's look at a less extreme example. We have speed limits, yet every car can reach speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour (although some need to be going downhill to achieve this feat). Why not simply engineer limiters on cars to prevent speeding? We have all been blown-off the road by some driver at one time or another. But like you, I like to speed every so often and I would not buy a car that had this restriction either. Thus, if they built it, we would not come....
OK, so what's my point here? It is to shift the paradigm of thought to view things in a new light.
I don't see the point of carpool lanes. This is not where you thought this diatribe was going I bet....
I care about the environment as much as the next person but it strikes me as odd that the concept of carpool lanes which dates back to the 1970's still only have approximately 9% utilization. Even with the millions of additional cars on the roads these days, utilization has never exceeded this amount based upon AAA estimates. With the worsening traffic on the highways in metropolitan areas, we all measure distance in terms of time, not miles, and inch along to and from our various destinations throughout the day. So how can it make sense to have 91% of traffic using 3 lanes, and only 9% of traffic using a fourth lane. Think about why traffic always seems to open up whenever the freeway suddenly widens to accommodate more vehicles.
That means by opening those lanes to everyone, we would have an instant reduction of congestion by 16%. Exhaust from cars collectively would be reduced by an even greater percentage as the other 91% of cars would all achieve some benefit from less engine idle time, greater fuel efficiency translating into fewer fill-up's and increased production time. The government charges a minimum fine of $341 for violation of the carpool lanes. Why, because so many people would use it if the fine were less. In theory, at $328 or $279, or some other lower arbitrary dollar amount, more of us would use it. Imagine if that lane were available to everyone for free... We would all use it, and what fun is there in that?
I have loved monorails since I first saw them as a child visiting Disneyland. So with the point of buses and subways and carpool lanes all designed to improve our lives and ease congestion, why has nobody thought about monorails. Think about this, monorails can run down the middle of every freeway, veer off through downtown corridors and all over suburban areas requiring a strip of land for the pilars not more than 3-6 feet wide. They are quiet, pretty cool to look at, fast, and can snake their tracks almost anywhere. No need to buy hundreds of millions of dollars of homes to clear a 100 foot wide swath through established areas, no need to burrow 100 foot deep tunnels at the cost of billions per mile for subways. Even with earthquakes here in California, the cost and time to replace small sections of monorail tracks is virtually pennies to that of repairing a potential subway collapse. We could errect an entire monorail system for the cost of just 3 or 4 miles of subway tunnels.
One shocking concept in college has stuck with me all these years, but I believe it has enabled me to take a different perspective on society and why things are the way they are. But it also inspires me to have a voice when it seems that the equilibrium gets out of balance. Traffic congestion and the aversion of seemingly obvious solutions frustrates me. Perhaps this commentary will have the same effect on others to cause a common sense change for the better.
Thank you to my professor, and thank you Mr. Disney!
David Alterman
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