I have always been a fan of Tom Sullivan on KFBK as a local talk show host. Well today he went over the line.
Tom called for the elimination of school buses due to high gas prices. He also went on to say that it’s the parents responsibility to be better parents and make sacrifices for their children. What type of sacrifices would we make Tom? Change jobs and go in later? Then tell your kids that they can’t have the normal lifestyle that they have become accustomed to because their mom or dad had to changes jobs making less money because a talk show host had their school buses eliminated!
Let me ask Tom a question, “How’s the view from the cheap seats?” It must be rough being able to set your hours, or have an assistant pick up your kids. Maybe I’ll just hire a nanny!
I am sure that tomorrow I will go right back to listening, but for now I’ll just be grumpy…
June 6th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Tom is only mediating the issues of cost. He’s a great guy and I respect his decisions especially when the evolutional calculation involves a grossly abused transportational system that desperately needs a restructure. Buses could be used from Cal-Trans to ferry children. Security aside, it has merit. The ratio of inter-district transfers are high everywhere. Parents already do a majority of the driving. So to run buses for free when prices are so high detracts from the required funding Sacramento does not have. Dynamically the infrastructure is broken politically and physically. Can’t get much worse. But in the end to focus and prioritize funding is paramount to the solution. Any parent that cannot ferry their children can resort to asking for help from a parent that most assuridly drives right passed their location. Get communication going…. Schools can setup pools. Or- we can just keep spending.
June 16th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
This ignores the primary problem: Suburban sprawl. Rather than building pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use (residences, schools, commerce and offices in the same neighborhood), mixed-income, mixed-density neighborhoods, recent Sacramento development has consistently been sprawl, sprawl, and sprawl. The hallmark of sprawl is that it’s single-use, pedestrian- and transit-unfriendly, and every single trip must be in an auto. The County published a document saying it would cost at least $50 million just to connect all the disconnected sidewalks. How could Sacramento have working transit if no one can walk to the stops?
Busing kids to school is necessary because we have big-box low-rise schools rather than the little schoolhouse, or high-rise high school that predated sprawl (pre-1950’s) in neighborhoods where a pedestrian has to enter a virtual minefield of obstacles to get anywhere. Kids can’t walk to school, or ride their bikes, the streets are designed exclusively for autos.
Believe it or not, the traditional neighborhoods alternative to sprawl is favored by the market (McKinley park has the highest per-square-foot value of any real estate in the region), and is in the Sacramento County General Plan (called “Transit-oriented deveopment” or TOD). It may take a village to raise a child, but in Sacramento County, we build sprawl instead.
August 6th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
@Yoshidad: Believe it or not, the traditional neighborhoods alternative to sprawl is favored by the market (McKinley park has the highest per-square-foot value of any real estate in the region)
No, I don’t believe it. Your analogy is inapt and your logic is faulty. Are you saying that the most popular art is post-modern dreck, just because some pieces of post-modern dreck bring the highest prices at some auctions? That the market favors Bugatti Veyron automobiles because they cost $1 million+? You are conflating the preferences of a small group of people who are willing and able to spend large sums of money to satisfy a desire with the preferences of the market. Two entirely different things.
Not that I’m surprised by your misuse of economic principles, though. Your comments around the ‘net demonstrate your voluminous deficit of knowledge in the “logic and economics” space.