Useful Stuff

FasTrak, cheaper

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The good thing about having a standardized statewide electronic toll collection system is that it’s interoperable between jurisdictions, thus allowing you to take advantage of price disparities among the different agencies and corporations that use it. San Diego and the Orange County toll roads require a $1 a month service fee, while the 91 Express Lanes require a start-up fee or a minimum monthly toll of $7. The San Francisco Bay Area toll bridges have neither a start-up fee, nor a monthly service fee.

In the last three years I’ve made only two trips on the 91 Freeway east of the 5, but both times I wanted desperately to pay for the privilege of driving past chumps in the Express Lanes. I’ve also been to the Bay Area a few times and have had to stop at the toll gate to pay cash like a commoner. Now I’ve found a cheap and easy way to get in that upper echelon of the electronically privileged. God bless the Internets.

NaBloPoMo 18

General

More freeways is not the answer

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Lots of people complain about the congestion here in Los Angeles. When asked what they’d want done, the answer is almost invariably, “They should make more lanes.” Unfortunately, making more lanes doesn’t solve anything. It’s true that adding capacity to the freeway will increase speeds, but increasing speeds and reducing commute times makes people more willing to travel further distances to their places of work, or convinces people who might otherwise avoid peak rush hour to switch back to a normal commuting time. The system soon reaches equilibrium, which is gridlock during periods of peak demand.

The problem here is that direct costs are kept artificially low; you pay nothing out of pocket to get on the freeway (hence the name). With no direct cost, and all other things being equal, demand always increases to meet the supply.

So what is the answer? Well, there are a few possible answers, some of them better than others, but most likely a combination of them all would address the problem.

  1. Charging direct costs: Charging people by the mile to use the highway, with higher pricing during rush hour, normal pricing during the day, and low or free pricing at night would cause people to make different choices about where they work and live, what time of day they choose to commute, and how they choose to commute. This is more effective than indirect costs such as gasoline or other taxes.
  2. Dedicated transit rights-of-way: Frequent, round-the-clock trains or buses with rights of way that matched/exceeded the commute time of personal automobiles would also change the equation, while promoting a virtuous cycle of relieving congestion for those drivers who still don’t have a practical alternative to driving. Imagine the persons per mile per hour capacity of a bus or train that had its own dedicated lane.
  3. Re-zoning major transportation corridors: Los Angeles is full of two to four story low rise buildings along its major thoroughfares. Doubling the allowable square footage and heights, while promoting the mixing of uses, would add much-needed supply to the real estate market (even now it’s a good idea), giving people more choices in terms of where they work and live.
  4. Increasing indirect costs: Driving behavior actually changed when fuel cost in excess of four dollars a gallon. Keeping prices high would discourage people from taking frivolous trips by car.
  5. Enforcing the idea that driving is a privilege: There are way too many idiot drivers on the road. A good chunk of them need to be given lifetime bus passes.

I can sense the coming storm of comments.

NaBloPoMo 17

Useful Stuff

PS3 vs. Standalone BDP, or the other Profile 2.0

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For the longest time, buying a PS3 was the cheapest way to get a Blu-Ray disc player. $600 for the movie-playing game console vs. $1000 for a standalone player. The PS3 also compared favorably in terms of startup time, disc load time, etc. Now that standalone players have dropped below $300, does the PS3 still make sense as an alternative?

ars technica: New Blu-ray 2.0 spec makes PS3 the most future-proof player

… Sony finally gets to play its trump card: the PlayStation 3, which has clearly emerged as one of the best Blu-ray players on the market—and is likely to remain so for some time. Why? Because the first player now becomes the most versatile, sporting a future-proof Blu-ray setup.

…

HD DVD players have included networking as standard since the beginning, but Blu-ray has not, and the evolving standard may become a large problem for early adopters. The 2.0 profile actually changes the minimum requirements for full compatibility. In other words, there is only one player currently on the market that will be 2.0 compatible: the PlayStation 3, which, with its upgradeable hard drive, Ethernet port, and powerful graphics capabilities, will be able to adapt to any and all future updates. This is quite the slap in the face to consumers who paid several hundred dollars for players that won’t able to be updated to take advantage of the 1.1 profile, much less the upcoming 2.0.

To me, this makes a strong case for getting the PS3. Still, some people will be hesitant to shell out $400 for a PS3 when they can pick up a decent Sony or Samsung BDP for $250. That’s where the Sony card and the SonyStyle store come in:

  1. Go to SonyStyle, add a PS3 to your cart, and start to go through the checkout process.
  2. On the payment page, check for the rebate offer for SonyStyle purchases using a Sony card (new card members only). I think it’s currently $100 off a $300 purchase. If it’s there, sign up for the card. If not, mull over your decision until after the holidays.
  3. Complete checkout and find the rebate on your first statement from the Sony card.

A few weeks ago the rebate was $150, so you might want to play the waiting game to see if Sony brings it back. Enjoy!

NaBloPoMo 14