Technology can certainly make things easier, but it seems that more and more frequently there?s a catch at the end of the rainbow. Remember back in the early days of the Internet when you could download programs for free to try them out, and then the company decided a year later that you should start paying for them? Remember when Google used to just be a search engine, back before it was working with the government and before it was in the business of selling you ads?
Well, I recently tested a number of Global Positioning System navigation devices for a magazine article. These things generally run about $800 or so and do a pretty good job of telling you where you are and giving you instructions to get where you want to go. Now comes word that a number of the companies that make these devices are working with other companies to use the devices for advertising. For example, if you were driving down the road and were using your GPS device to get you to a certain address an ad for the Dunkin Donuts “just 300 yards ahead on the right” would pop up. I don?t know about you, but I find it offensive to think that paying $800 for a device ends up being little more than yet another way for advertisers to reach me. Of course, the same thing could be said about that television set sitting in the living room.
Martin writes, “There will be more and continued crawl through the sprawl of Baltimore County thanks to [a reported decision] to scuttle the nearly completed [Light Rail] station at Texas Court on the recently double-tracked and reopened northern section of the Central Light Rail Line. Nearly a million tax dollars have been expended on this station that is nearly complete, lacking only a platform along the northbound track. A 7-Eleven store has opened here in expectation that customers would use the Texas Court Station. So commuters who would choose this alternative form of transportation will continue to drive to Timonium, adding to congestion on major arteries and consuming high-priced gasoline.
“A major fault of the northern section of Central Light Rail has been a lack of station stops at convenient points for those who might wish to use it and leave their automobiles at home, or at a Park-N-Ride. There are no stations at all in the long stretch between Falls Road and Lutherville. In the 17-plus years that this has been a railway route, there have been no less than six stations along this stretch of track. And the old Northern Central Railway placed depots wherever an east-west road crossed the track, such as at Padonia Road, for example.”
I?m not sure of the specifics here, nor have I been able to confirm Martin?s conclusion. However, I have seen a number of cases where projects have been started and then stopped for one reason or another. It does seem like transit is getting the short end here and, given the current struggle by commuters for more options, this would seem something worthy of continuing.
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