An audiophile and petrolhead's musings: in the hi-fidelity, first class, traveling set - Page 64

I've been wondering about this issue for a while and the thread has kind of stirred my thoughts, so let me put this question to you.

Is the current design trend related to a decrease in the desire for personal mobility? I mean personally, I would like to own a good car, but it just doesn't seem to be worth the hassle, with all the insurance, repairs and traffic. So I rely on the public transport. Most of the drivers I see out there are mostly alone, in a 4-5 seater car.

You have a point but I guess it also comes down to preference. I just hate catching the bus and waiting on the bus to get from destination to destination. In all honesty if it was safer and decently close I'd much rather ride bike but that's out of the question where I live lol. I use to do that living in Kailua though.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by lee730 

You have a point but I guess it also comes down to preference. I just hate catching the bus and waiting on the bus to get from destination to destination. In all honesty if it was safer and decently close I'd much rather ride bike but that's out of the question where I live lol. I use to do that living in Kailua though.
 

Well, the US is an exception in this regard. The US public transport system is not the most efficient, to be honest. A few places I've found the bus stop sign the size of a postcard, and the bus stop itself is just a lamp post. I took a bus from Detroit city to the airport once, not the most memorable of my journeys.

But yes, what I mean is that most ppl nowadays are looking for an air conditioned box to sit in. There's no driving pleasure to be had, when all you do is sit in traffic 80% of the time.

One of my hobbies in my teens was buying the UK car magazine Top Marques, which on a monthly basis lists some of the UK's most desirable cars. I would gaze open-eyed and with eager delight at the contemplation of owning the cars listed. Seeing this thread has prompted some similar feelings from within me and I thank the car-lovers who have contributed photos to this thread. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by fuzzyash 

from the above quote, i thought you meant when you were looking at the red hd800, the music was sounding clearer on your own hd800

The opposite presides, IMO: The less I'm aware of a headphone, the clearer the music is presented.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magick Man 


Try finding an AMX/3 for under $300k. Check this, a Pantera with an AMX/3 body kit. **** me, that's beautiful.

Actually I was looking at that. That picture is actually photoshopped.  The guy who originally posted it bought an original amx/3 concept body, just the fiberglass shell, then he produced a few replicas of it.  He had it sitting on a pantera kit car frame at first, then decided to build an custom frame.  At the moment he has one unfinished AMX/3 Kit car, with a built 390 v8 and a few more body shells.  His goal was to create a line of kit cars, but he ran out of cash.   He is currently looking for investors.  Perhaps you could invest. :D

http://www.amx390.com

Quote:

Originally Posted by billybob_jcv 


I think it is VERY much dependent on your specific local area. If everything you do is easily reachable by public transportation, then great - why not. But when you want to go to that really cool audio store that is an hour away and there is no public transportation, then what? And what about dating? Or simply having the freedom to go somewhere *right now*? I'm a typical SoCal resident - I would be miserable without my car!

Agree. I like cars, a lot. 

But I tried driving my dad's car when I was to get my driving license, and I was pretty crap. Haven't driven in a few years now. But I try to satisfy my craving with racing sims.

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich 


That...sucks. Really bad. I will enjoy driving my big V8 monster this morning even more, knowing that there are children in other parts of the world who would be grateful to have it.
I'm alone in a 3 seater car.
But yeah I can see what you're saying to some extent - I've lived in a few metro areas in the last few years, with varying quality of mass-transit. By and large I like mass transit, but still maintain a car for the weekends, getting TO a transit terminal, and other "I want it now" things (like grocery shopping - can't really do that via bus or train where I am (before I moved, I used to take the train to shop weekly - it was actually really nice), and walking 6-7 miles is just obscene with a lot of groceries). The biggest issue is not that Americans aren't interested in doing mass transit right, it's that the design paradigm for urban sprawl and suburban/exurban planning is antithetical to not owning a car. For example, I take a combination of bus and commuter rail in the mornings - it's roughly a ~26 mile trip one way (and it takes about 30 minutes, and is faster than driving, because the bus runs in its own lane, and the train obviously doesn't wait for traffic (to a fault - I think we're up to six pedestrian strikes this year alone! not quite as bad as Dallas, but still)); I have to drive around four miles from my home to the nearest transit terminal though! How is that effective? Or getting groceries - the nearest store is again, around 5 miles off. And I'm not "in the sticks" here, I'm in one of the wealthiest suburbs of one of the most populous metro areas in the western US.
But if you look at truly planned cities (like Salt Lake, where I used to live), the pre-suburb/exurb sections especially, you really can walk or bike everywhere. And their addition of commuter rail just makes everything much faster - you can EASILY go from home to work, and back again, and do all of your shopping, entertainment, etc just on the train. And yes I've gone on dates using the train. And shopping. And so on and so on. And it is just "normal." But there is a reason Salt Lake is used in a lot of urban/city planning courses as a case study today - it stands out. It's also much smaller than most cities (total population for the city itself is under 200,000), so that contributes too.
Contrast this to DC, where you have relatively good public transit in the CBD (the "disneyland effect"), but when you start getting into the suburbs, exurbs, or if you want to be mean, consider the entire MSA - mass transit is a joke. And really it's the same story here. Sure, we're spending something like three billion dollars (it's doubled our taxes over the last 7 years, we have like the second highest salestax in the US because of it, and it's still not finished) to add more rail lines, and it still will be barely worthwile by and large. Because again, the way suburbs and exurbs and so on are designed they don't lend themselves to mass transit (mass transit is actually a similar logical problem as doing laundry, if that helps you conceptualize it as a data flow easier).
Honestly, I like my car, but I don't like needing it. That's what annoys me - that it's kind of a forced choice.

lmao sound like the same rail BS we have taking place here. When plans initially started I think it was around 3 billion? Then delays and up to 5 billion. Now hearing it will be from 8 to 10 billion when the project is done. This is the kicker here. They want to bring in all the contractors (workers) from the mainland and leave the islanders here without the jobs. What a joke and what a huge waste of money. The rail won't be accessible to all parts of the island. Just certain areas. Still a big fat fail IMO. We could build 7 H3 Freeways for the price of this crap rail system lol.

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich 


Yeah. To put it another way - we have the most expensive section of the Interstate highway system here, and it cost less than our rail expansion. And all the rail expansion will do is connect the wealthiest suburbs to the airport, to let the granolas feel superior (you know, because having an LS-600h isn't enough). They stopped expanding in low income areas about a decade ago.
Sales tax went from around 5% to just over 10% - all of it goes to funding this transportation project. Oh yeah, and did I mention that our highways are falling apart and undersized (we *invented* "patch and pray")? Makes sense to me!
I think most of the contractors are brought in from Germany too; it's all being done by Siemens AG (and it was a no-bid, which is of course the fair way to do things).

lol the patch and pray is the same bs happening here. Actually what they pray for is that you are too stupid or lazy to file a claim as they make it like you are a criminal to try and get compensation for damages due to their roads. If they intended to fix the problem they would need to dig up the bad area and repave that small section. Patching is just a lazy ass way out and actually makes the problem worse like an infected wound spreading.

Anyone watching the American Grand Prix this weekend? I can't, too late in the night for me.