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20 September 2005
The makers of the Opera web browser are now offering it for free. The ads are gone so there's no need to register to be rid of them. I haven't been able to confirm it, but supposedly anyone who paid the registration fee in the last 30 days will be getting a refund.
Listening to the radio over lunch, there was coverage of someone in the Twin Cities who said something rather nonsensical: "We need to adjust zoning so transit is more attractive." The person who said this went on to say that by changing zoning there'd be less parking and denser conditions. Sadly, this person either holds or seeks office.
What this is, is not making transit more attractive, but that wretched thing, attempted social engineering. Transit, in the above quotation, is not merely transportation, which is already quite popular, but public transit or mass transit rather than personal transit.
Adjusting zoning as the person suggested would do nothing to actually enhance the appeal of public transit. What it would do is make personal transit more difficult. That doesn't actually enhance anything, except perhaps frustration. What it does is degrade what is there in hopes of shifting the result of the comparison.
Personal transit took over from mass transit in most places for a very simple reason: People like freedom. Public transit requires living on other people's schedules and living with other people's choice of where to go, when to go, and how to get there. Personal transit does not, or at least requires significantly less adherence to schedules that are not your own. Want to go someplace? Just go! Decide partway there that you need to turn around? Just turn around. No need to wait till the next stop and then wait again for something going the other direction.
With mass transit you're dependent on what is pretty much a single system. Any change to that affects you, but you have little if any control over it. While there is also dependence upon personal transit, there is also personal control. Vehicle not right? You can decide who can fix it. Maybe you can do that yourself. Or you can try a different model or make, if you like. Shell station not treating you right? BP and Conoco and Sinclair and Citgo and others are ready for your business.
I'm not completely opposed to mass transit, but I do think the decision to use it should be on merit. Want mass transit to be more appealing? Then find out how to give it more appeal and do so. Don't destroy the appeal of something else in order to rig the comparison. It's the difference between an honest win and cheating.
