TheNiche Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 Interesting hypotheticals all around. Your scenario sounds plausibly better than reality has been from a recovery standpoint, presuming you didn't have Bolivar level damage on a significant portion of the concentrated area.If New York had the geology and bathymetry of any location along the Texas coast, it would not have fared as well as it has.But suppose you keep everyone in the Houston metro area where they are now, but instead of an expanded freeway system, they ride hypothetical trains that take them to where they work and our roads look about like they did in 1985. I think that is a more reasonable analog to what Staten Island and Long Island are dealing with currently. Would people in Baytown be able to get gas and groceries in Cypress after five days? Maybe, but there would be fewer gas stations once they got there.NY metro is so huge, they have the worst of all of these scenarios when it goes bad. They have heavily populated suburbs that depend on trains and a maxed out freeway system.Interesting logistics exercise.What if I intentionally bred bulldogs (starting five years ago, even though I just now had the idea) that were conjoined twins with two digestive systems even though I had the option of them having had only one digestive system? It'd be ugly, dysfunctional, cruel, and a waste of my time and resources.It'd be just like debating whether a rail-dependent Baytonian in an alternate universe could access groceries and gas in Cypress five days after a hurricane. Utterly senseless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate99 Posted November 6, 2012 Author Share Posted November 6, 2012 If New York had the geology and bathymetry of any location along the Texas coast, it would not have fared as well as it has.What if I intentionally bred bulldogs (starting five years ago, even though I just now had the idea) that were conjoined twins with two digestive systems even though I had the option of them having had only one digestive system? It'd be ugly, dysfunctional, cruel, and a waste of my time and resources.It'd be just like debating whether a rail-dependent Baytonian in an alternate universe could access groceries and gas in Cypress five days after a hurricane. Utterly senseless.A rail dependent Queens resident can not access gas and groceries 35 miles from his home five days after a hurricane, I was able to do so after Ike. What if greater Houston were more rail dependent as some people want it to be? It's certainly not a practical question, but "senseless" seems a bit overwrought considering the medium here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 What if greater Houston were more rail dependent as some people want it to be? What if my grandmother had a dick? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate99 Posted November 6, 2012 Author Share Posted November 6, 2012 What if my grandmother had a dick?What if the concept of hypotheticals drove you to compulsive dismissiveness?If you don't like the topic, why don't you just say so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 What if the concept of hypotheticals drove you to compulsive dismissiveness?If you don't like the topic, why don't you just say so.The original topic is intriguing, but I think that we rapidly strayed from it. Unrealistic hypotheticals serve no purpose...just like breeding siamese bulldogs. There's no point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 (edited) A rail dependent Queens resident can not access gas and groceries 35 miles from his home five days after a hurricaneWhy not? Seems like there was plenty of gas in PA. Their supply tightened, but they had gas available. The rail lines to Queens were back up a few days ago, btw. And higher density means more area grocery stores, too. Edited November 6, 2012 by kylejack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate99 Posted November 6, 2012 Author Share Posted November 6, 2012 There's no point.Probably not outside my own head and perhaps a few others. That's sufficient intrigue for my purposes, clearly not yours. I'm ok with that. Sorry to hear about your grandmother. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate99 Posted November 6, 2012 Author Share Posted November 6, 2012 Why not? Seems like there was plenty of gas in PA. Their supply tightened, but they had gas available. The rail lines to Queens were back up a few days ago, btw.PA is a good 2 hour drive from Queens on a normal day if you're lucky (I've done it, it's fairly miserable), logistically that seems a different order of difficulty than going to the other side of Houston, but perhaps my impression of how bad off they are was wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 (edited) n/t Edited November 6, 2012 by kylejack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian0123 Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 You can argue people are too heavily dependent on anything. Yeah, people should hunt instead of going to grocery stores, grow their own fruits and veggies, live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by barbed wire, have their own solar powered off-the-grid home, communicate over their own private network they manage (and their own cell phone tower they built), and never go anywhere. Maybe even come up with your own currency and internet while you're at it.Face it, we're all dependent on thousands of systems that will (and do) fail us. Using this as an argument against mass transit is crazy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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