With LiFeP packs I have no issues - they are as safe as the majority of rechargeable batteries, and better than the packs in a Prius: they burn like Hell (no joke!). Haven't received any Paddlewise for quite a few days, by the way, so thanks to you fellas (and ladies) who send copies of their mails direct! Traffic, another modern man's plague: Locally, the traffic situation is getting seriously congested, and the air is getting seriously polluted most of the year, so the wise guys at the helm of our town has put their thinking caps on: Too many cars congest and pollute the inner city, so let's build a chain of toll booths around the city - which at least in London has worked well. So they want to introduce these tolls ASAP, say in 2011. BUT there are a lot of problems in connection with this: 1. A lot of the people traveling into the city comes from surrounding lesser towns and villages, thus would all need to come by train, and the train system is stretched close to the limit, as it is, as there never have been so many trains as now, on the existing tracks. The passenger trains have to compete for room on the tracks with slower goods trains, as quite a lot of goods are again transported by rail. To improve the situation we would need lots of new tracks, which the government-owned company that lay down the tracks can't do in a jiffy (not enough money, not enough resources, and then it is all the planning that needs to be done, the handling of any complaints, and the court cases that are bound to pop up about whose gardens will be transformed into tracks, and so on). Banverket's, the track company's, plans, as they stand today, is that the the upgrade of the tracks will be finished by 2016, but no promises! The trains themselves are run by various companies, after glorious EU deregulation, which are also stretched to the limit, due to the present economic downturn. If things pick up the demand will rise far quicker than new trains can be ordered and delivered! 2. More local travelers would then need to turn to me and my mates, that is, switch to traveling by trams and buses. The problem is that these resources are also stretched to the limit during 'rush hour' (nowadays that is from 7 am to 8 pm, with a few quieter hours in between 10 am to 2 pm). Again, buying new rolling tram stock is very expensive (but classic trams last for ever - nobody knows if today's electronic wonders will last nearly as long). Worse is that new tram tracks take years to lay, and cost billions (in kronor), so a hugely improved capacity is not very likely in the next decade, or so! More buses are cheaper, but take a year, or two, from order to delivery, and cost hundreds of millions - which the company owner(s) doesn't have. Even today, again due to the glorious free market forces, maintenance of the rolling stock (trains, buses and trams) is on a shoe-string budget, and the more electronic gizmos that are built-in, the more often they break down, thus total breakdowns are increasingly common. All is not glum, as the towing companies are doing just fine :-)! In short it is beginning to be like a parody. 3. Part of our city is located on an island called Hisingen (it is actually part of the main land, but the river bifurcates just north of Gothenburg, so we call it an island). The main highway from the continent to Norway passes over our island, and the main connection from Denmark to Finland passes through the city as well. So, our two bridges and single tunnel are, at rush-hour, filled by commuters, while the tunnel, at night, is almost filled with trucks going towards the northwestern parts of Scandinavia, or returning to southern, or central, Europe. So we need a new bridge and a tunnel, ASAP, as the oldest bridge is considered a collapse in the making (very last date of use 2020), and those are to be financed by the road tolls, mentioned above, but as 2 follows 1, it will be worse chaos, the next decade, before things settles down. Today, at rush hour (see above) a single stalled car, in the tunnel (which carries thousands of cars, and possibly 100,000 cars) on any of the two bridges (the old ones carry the trams across the river, in addition to numerous buses - say 500 a day, plus maybe ten thousand cars, the new carries even more cars, and lots of trucks, many heading for the various Volvo plants on the 'island' - our island is home for most things Volvo, including most HQs). So if the old draw bridge falls down before being decommissioned things will get very nasty indeed. This summer the old tunnel has been refurbished, and further repairs are scheduled for next summer, and even if traffic normally is down 20% during the vacation season, mile long queues were the norm, even though the two-tube tunnel was only closed 50%. I am very happy I now both work and live on the island, and can do without the bridges and tunnel most of the time! I work on both sides, but I have my own lane then across the old bridge :-)! To add to the chaos, most people that work, or study, downtown live either on the island, or in the communities dotted around Gothenburg, and the Volvo workers commute the other way! Logical, ain't it?! The oil companies are happy as punch, of course! Ah, brave new world, where the h*ll are we heading?! *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Oct 21 2009 - 04:57:08 PDT
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