From CleanTechnica:
Town Of Summit (NJ) Using Uber To Relieve Congestion At Train Station Parking Lot
While Uber is currently used mainly as a taxi substitute/alternative, services like Uber (or Lyft) could be used in a number of other fashions as well.
One example is the way that the town of Summit, New Jersey, is now using the service as part of a new pilot program that aims to potentially reduce congestion at the parking lots used by the town’s train station.
The train station in question is a common point of departure for those who work in or near New York City, so it is heavily used by commuters. Naturally, this leads to traffic.
Green Car Reports provides more: “The program is the first of its kind in New Jersey, and will allow the town to avoid spending money on a new parking lot, according to The Verge. … Initially, 100 commuters who have purchased parking passes will be eligible for free Uber rides to and from the station. Others will be able to ride for $2.00 each way, meaning a round trip will cost the same as a daily parking pass at the station. During the experiment, these rides will be subsidized by the local government.”
From the Philly Voice:
Subsidized Uber? New Jersey town taking leap to limit parking woes
The city of Summit, located in Union County, announced earlier this month that the partnership with Uber will extend to residents whose trips begin or end in Summit, or at the train station, between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday to Friday. Rides will cost $2 each way to replace the daily $4 parking fee in a long-term commuter lot.
“As an alternative transportation option, ridesharing is not new,” Summit Mayor Nora Radest said. “But our program is the first of its kind in the United States to use ridesharing technology as a parking solution. Our innovation has the potential to shape how municipalities think about and implement parking options in the future.”
City records indicate that 39 percent of morning commuter trips in Summit end at the train station, while 29 percent of evening trips from the station end within Summit. Rather than spend taxpayer dollars on a new public parking lot, the city will effectively save 100 spaces by launching the Uber program.
Local officials estimate the city, whose population stands at about 22,000, will save residents $5 million in taxes over the next 20 years by forgoing a new parking lot.
FRIST
From the Record:
North Jersey train commuters closer to having one-seat ride to NYC
The best feature of Amtrak’s proposed Gateway Project for commuters from Bergen and Passaic counties may be a new track that gives them a one-seat ride to and from Manhattan.
That feature is the Secaucus Loop, which often gets overlooked in the larger Gateway Project to build two new Hudson River Tunnels, a Penn Station New York annex and additional tracks in New Jersey.
The loop would be built in the vicinity of the Secaucus Junction train station, where commuters using the four Bergen, Rockland and Orange County rail lines now have to change trains from the station’s lower level.
The loop would eliminate that transfer, said Orrin Getz, Rockland coordinator for the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers.
Federal officials said Friday that financing could be in place in two years to build the Secaucus Loop, and construction could start shortly after.
From a couple days ago…
grim says:
October 11, 2016 at 7:14 am
Just scanning the news on the gas tax. The Bergen and Camden light rail projects will cost $2 billion dollars? TWO BILLION?
Jesus. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just give everyone a discount on Uber?
So it looks like Biden told the Russians we are going to cyber attack them! So we are letting them know?? Meanwhile according to the ny times the Russians are considering reopening bases in Cuba and Vietnam. Hillary is going to have her hands full. And we may be going to war. Just saying.
I mentioned yesterday that if Clinton gets in, its going to get hot right away. I would not be surprise if something happens post election/before swearing for even more chaotic effect.
Putin has a personal thing against the Clinton, because of what he perceived Bill Clinton lied, aided and abetted in hurting Russia and I’m betting that he’s going to do everything in his power to make sure Hillary’s term is a disaster.
The List is big:
-Expansion of NATO into H.W.Bush agreed not to expand.
-The break-up of Yugoslavia/Croatia/Serbia mess.
-The support of the 5 Oligarch that brought Russian citizens to their knees, and screwing around by the US into Russian election ( There is actually a moie “Spinning Boris” ). (kids living in the Moscow sewer / over 90% of the kiddie p0rn out there came from Russian during this time / First thing Putin did was pick them up and put them in military schools)
-The attempt by Hermitage Fund to steal Russian gold. They wanted to do with Russian Gold what DeBeers did with Diamonds in South Africa.
-The Neo-Con rearrangement & control of the Middle East and trying to by-pass Russian Oil/Gas to Europe. This is a big one. Europe is moving to all natural gas and renewables. The gas comes from Russia and with it control/money. Part of the mess with Syria is that the neo-cons wanted to build gas pipelines from Quatar through a (post Assad) Syria into Europe. Again bypassing Russia.
In short, Putin has a bug about the Clinton and he’s going to match them toe to toe and check mate them if she wins from the day after election on.
A very big one is the Muslim issue.
Which is that Qatar, UAE, Saudia Arabia and Kuwait financially support AQ & ISIS. Both Russia and China have the same problem with extremist islam. Both are flabbergasted why the US keeps being an allied to the ones that are their enemies. It was not Iraq that needed to be invaded, it was Saudi Arabia.
When you put on the glasses and see the connection is Wall Street – Middle east, Big Oil – Middle East and a lesser extent the Israel issue then you see why.
Russia has always being very strategic, factual, and logical in their thinking. In Putin’s mind he sees the US screwing with him/Russia even when we have more in common than in difference, when there is no reason to. He’s authoritarian and corrupt, so does everyone else the US does business with. But from a self preservation point of view it looks bad. Because we are doing business and protecting the same people that are hurting us. Our middle east frenemies. In Putin’s worldview the fact that they are trying to block Russia from selling Gas to Europe is an issue, not only because of the financial/strategic link but because Putin feels offended than who is more European than Russia (Classical music, ballet, literature, sciences, mathematics, space exploration, kicking Germany’s behind in WW1 & 2) and why do you want to hurt it for the benefit of goat/camel f’rs that are financing the destruction of the same European/Western view that Russian’s are proud of.
Add the above to the personal dislike of the Clintons and we are going to have good times.
Easier for Putin and the Russian mob oligarchs to just buy her.
In this election cycle we are now spectators to the weaponization of absurdity and unreality. Is anything we read or see or hear even true anymore? Obama made a speech this week about it and I have been thinking hard myself especially with this latest supposed planning for an US Cyber Attack that was leaked by Biden most likely intentionally.
The conclusion I have come to is if nothing is true, then anything is possible, and that is very very dangerous.
“The conclusion I have come to is if nothing is true, then anything is possible, and that is very very dangerous.”
Nice that the denial and anger phases seem to be over. Depression is at bat (and questioning the purpose of life), and soon it will be acceptance.
There is nothing to bargain or accept especially when the Obama years have been great for most here (anyone here who is worse off than eight years ago?). Granted, most here project an aura of success, invincibility, and a general sense of perfection… If they are actually worse off, they are less likely than Donald Trump to admit to it. So, anyone admitting should probably get a higher weight (like some variant of the mythical “shy Trump voter”).
I’ve got the Trump sound bite for the next debate:
“Secretary Clinton says she cares about children, which I assume also includes her daughter Chelsea’s children, her grandchildren as well as Bill Clinton’s son Danney Williams’ three children. While Bill and Hillary don’t have any biological children together, I think she should be concerned for the future of their 5 grandchildren when it comes to…(borders, security, jobs, economy, etc.”
I think grim’s site here may have made the big time, at least when it comes to being on the Clinton radar. I’m pretty sure now that Flea [sic] is part of the $6 million dollar Hillary troll payroll.
Flea is a cunt. He claims to have a brown one, but I doubt it.
Flee Obama had nothing to do with how well people are doing compared to 8 years ago. Whatever recovery we have is based on the Fed’s zero interest rate policy. If history is honest he will go down as one of the most unaccomplished arrogant and divisive presidents we have ever had.
lol
https://i.redd.it/awp4yux6gorx.png
3b, if the argument is whether Obama should get (all/most/any) credit for things being good, it is a good situation for him to be in.
He gets no credit. The economy improved despite his nonsense.
ACA is pushing many companies to nearshore.
Grim,
On a related topic, I expect that we will see some novel interpretations of the “controlled company” test to attempt to aggregate seemingly unrelated entities for ACA purposes.
Flee probably also thinks that the marginal rate hike imposed by Clinton helped pull the nation out of recession. It didn’t
The other big myth is that they worked hard to balance the budget under Clinton. They didn’t even see it coming. They took in a ton of capital gains taxes from a huge stock market bubble that involved buying/selling.
More unreality in the queue, from Drudge tweet.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DRUDGE/status/787326951920902144?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Yes, waiting 15 years into your adult life to get a college degree sounds like a shrewd move.
“When I taught at Rutgers, my very best students were the people in their mid-30s who never went to college and were now going on their own dime.”
Spoken like a true a-hole that was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
Nom, I don’t have much info on the effect of Bill Clinton’s tax hike on the economy (the economy was pretty good for most people). Obama’s FICA tax increase (lifting cap on medicare portion of FICA) is helping ACA subsidies. I think if we undid Dubya’s tax cuts (e.g. dividends), it will help the economy.
Off topic (very hypothetical)… What is your take on Silicon Valley real-estate wise? It will mean a big downsizing in terms of house, and only one income in the short-term. It is still at a very hypothetical stage — may be in a few years.
The bigger myth is that the budget was balanced at all. Every year the total federal debt increased.
Ben says:
October 16, 2016 at 10:47 am
The other big myth is that they worked hard to balance the budget under Clinton. They didn’t even see it coming. They took in a ton of capital gains taxes from a huge stock market bubble that involved buying/selling.
The biggest myth is that the government AND the president have anything to do with the economic business cycle.
Joyce, wasn’t there one at least one year in Bill Clinton administration where there was a surplus? I remember Greenspan’s worries about whether the federal debt would be paid off faster than optimal…
@MiloWear1A
Wow! Crazed violent Democrats firebombed the Republican HQ in Orange County North Carolina –>
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article108627627.html …
Is going to get worse for 3 reasons.
1-The Clintons lower the bar in what ever they do. A lower bar attracts the same type of pig cr@p mud fighting lowered bar candidates like Trump. Which means anything goes. Assassination attempts are not that far away.
2- Mosaic America. Everyone is a hyphenated American, instead of American, so they identify more with their group than the country. This is a big reason to slow immigration, to allow chewing time.
3- The economy. Feeling like there is no future, or future is rigged in favor of Wall Street, corporations, or whatever – leads people into a dark nihilistic road. That is why FDR’s radio firechats in the great depression were special. Because it was about hope and the future, not the guy across the street trying to stick it to you.
One of them is bad enough. All of them together is explosive.
No
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm
Flee? says:
October 16, 2016 at 3:14 pm
Joyce, wasn’t there one at least one year in Bill Clinton administration where there was a surplus? I remember Greenspan’s worries about whether the federal debt would be paid off faster than optimal…
Ben,
When I taught at Rutgers, my very best students were the people in their mid-30s who never went to college and were now going on their own dime.
The spread among regular (full-time) students will be very large versus the spread among adults with full-time jobs that are self-paying (or company-paid, in which case they need to get good grades for reimbursement). There will be more full-time students at the university, and they will be taking many more courses each semester, so the upper percentiles and lower percentiles of those groups will be vastly different. Of course, project reports and such will be better from the adult group (mainly because they do such things as part of their regular job).
Also, if a high-school kid is even within the ball park of “pretty good”, that kid is likely going to get offers from one of the many great places around (within a five hour drive, there are so many good to great schools, that are way better than Rutgers). There are only a small set of grad programs that are competitive at Rutgers, but the overall level isn’t that great.
Flee I know lots of young men and women who graduated from Rutgers including one of my own children and they are all doing just fine. Graduated in 4 years all working and building careers and their lives. Once you get your first job out of school no one gives a trap where you graduated from.
Competitive? What do you mean? Welcome to the overpriced college degree fallacy. There’s a brother from Princeton who works at my level. A real nice guy he is. Though I can business administrate him to the floor with my 18 credits of Montclair State graduate schooling.
Joyce,
What is the difference between the following and the treasury direct numbers?
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/
Accounting differences? Extra-budgetary spending? Dubya’s $300 rebate checks (for FY starting Oct 2000)?
Not d fend the difference with hyphen Americans today vs in the past is back then immigrants wanted to assimilate to the civic values of what it meant to be an American. Many held on to aspects of their cultural heritage whether it was language among family and friends their music or religion or ethnic food etc. I have no problem with this in fact it makes America interesting. The problem with some immigrants today is the notion that we must change and accommodate their cultural societal norms.
An article at Factcheck is often used to respond to my original article. The article cites Congressional Budget Office (CBO) numbers that cite an on-budget surplus of $87.2 billion and an off-budget (Social Security) surplus of $149.8 billion. The Factcheck article says: “But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000.”
The above Factcheck statement acknowledges the fact that Social Security trust fund surpluses really don’t have anything to do with the president’s budget, nor can they really be considered part of a surplus since they’ll have to be paid back to Social Security later. So they argue that even if you don’t count the $149.8 billion Social Security surplus, President Clinton was still responsible for an “on-budget” surplus of $86.4 billion (actually the numbers are $87.2 billion on-budget and $149.8 billion off-budget/Social Security according to to table 2 of the MTS ; I’m not sure where Factcheck got its numbers… but their numbers are close enough).
What Factcheck does not mention, however, is that while Social Security is the only off-budget trust fund, it’s not the only trust fund. Just as surpluses caused by Social Security should not be considered a real surplus caused by a president’s budget, nor should surpluses caused by other trust funds be considered. The following table shows the major trust funds that contributed to surpluses in 2000. These numbers come from Table 6 Schedule D of the MTS for September 2000 . That table contains a complete list of all the trust funds and government accounts that contributed to the “surplus” due to their excess funds.
TRUST FUND SURPLUSES IN 2000 (table 6 schedule D)
Social Security $152.3 billion
Civil Service Retirement Fund $30.9 billion
Federal supplementary medical insurance Trust fund $18.5 billion
Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund $15.0 billion
Unemployment Trust Fund $9.0 billion
Military Retirement Fund $8.2 billion
Transportation Trust Funds $3.8 billion
Employee life insurance & retirement $1.8 billion
Other $7.0 billion
TOTAL $246.5 billion
As can be seen from Table 6 Schedule D of the Treasury Department’s MTS , all the government’s trust funds contributed a total of $246.5 billion to the “surplus.” That is extra money that was contributed to trust funds for the specific trust fund purposes, not as taxes, and is $246.5 billion that the U.S. government now owes to those trust funds and will have to pay back in the future. And although the government took in that extra $246.5 billion in non-tax revenue from those trust funds, the MTS indicates it only reduced the public debt by $223 billion. That’s why even with all the excess money coming in from the trust funds, the national debt went up. The government received extra money from trust funds but didn’t use all of it to reduce the public debt. Some of it was used on normal government spending during 2000.
If all of the extra money coming from trust funds had been used to pay down the national debt, intragovernmental debt would have increased by $248.7 billion and the public debt would’ve decreased by the same amount–and it would have resulted in no change to the total national debt from 1999 to 2000; that would have arguably been balanced government spending (though not a surplus). Instead, the government received $248.7 billion in extra trust fund income but only spent $230.8 billion of that on reducing the public debt. The remaining $17.9 billion was spent and represents, as indicated in my original article, a deficit.
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/30
3b, steam…
If a kid gets admission to Rutgers, Princeton, Columbia, Montclair, TCNJ, and local community college, what would be a reason to pick Rutgers over Princeton and Columbia [excluding the scenario where there is some program where Rutgers is super-strong]?
Some reasons for Rutgers over Princeton/Columbia I can think of are higher tuition, higher pressure/stress (Cornell had some bad cases a few years ago), and may be more distance from home.
Conversely, you get more rigorous education (academically speaking), as much challenge as your brain can handle (so there is no boredom/complacency), and may be more opportunities due to alumni contacts.
What would be a reason to pick Rutgers over Montclair, TCNJ, and local CC? This is all statistically speaking of course.
Some great people can and do come from Rutgers. In fact, I know some people from Rutgers :)
Rumors Jullian Assange is dead. Dead mans protocol triggered. He released encryption keys today.
Joyce… Thanks. Explains the difference.
re: “Rumors Jullian Assange is dead”
Did he catch some lead from the Austin Powers Fembot Pam Anderson?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTv9AhCuSU4