@allendowney @marijuanapolicy in canada psychiattists are reporting an epidemic of delusional szchizoid amongst young men due to marijuana.

@physicssteve it all depends what "is" is

@paul isnt this the hawthorn effect?

@donieosullivan sara sidner

@aristeon 1)i repeat density is the.metric not population. Dresden and frankfurt have twice the density of omaha.
2) most european transit syatems (outside of large metros) are not good uses of public capital.
3) the question in omahas busses vs trams. Busses are better.

@aristeon its not the population but rather density. Dresden and frankfurt have double the pop density of omaha. Your point on bad bus networks is a good one. Omaha could triple busseS for 300 million dollars. The tram is one line. Omaha, on a per capita basis has 5 pct the rides that nyc has (mostly due to density)

@aristeon the upfront fixed cost seems to be 300 million dollars. Operating costs are on top of this and may well be about the same as busses. An Electric bus costs 800k. And omaha has a population of 500k for the city and 800k for metro. Today The city has 135 busses. You could more than triple the number of busses for the fixed cost alone. Omahs bus ridership peaked at 5 rides per city resident in 2008 and has been declining ever since. The tram does not seem to make economic sense.

@aristeon i read the first part of the article. It seems he is saying that the high fixed costs of the streetcar are unlikely to be recouped. A bus uses the existing road system. Railroads make sense in high densely populated environments. Maybe omaha (a lot more sparsely populated than tokyo, beijing, delhi, or paris) cannot support a streetcar.