Thursday, March 5, 2009

Go Ahead, But You Should Pay For It

High Speed NIMBYs on the peninsular should be allowed to advocate for the line to go underground. But if that happens, they should pay for it. I'm not paying for their choice to locate their house near a working railroad track. No one else should have to pay for that when there is a perfectly good surface and elevated alternative. Again, where were these people in the fall? Squeaky wheel always you know...

4 comments:

Chris Bradford said...

And, of course, they won't pay for it because the cost of burying the rail dwarfs the cost to the NIMBYs.

Anonymous said...

berkeley put their money where their mouth is and taxed themselves to put bart underground (as opposed to elevated) back in the 1960s.

but i wouldnt expect that from a bunch of rich nimbys of today.

njh said...

At last, one of the company's most skillful "trouble-shooters" was sent to interview this stormy petrel. This "troubleshooter" listened and let the cantankerous customer enjoy himself pouring out his tirade. The telephone representative listened and said "yes" and sympathized with his grievance.

"He raved on and I listened for nearlv three hours," the "troubleshooter" said as he related his experiences before one of the author's classes. "Then I went back and listened some more. I interviewed him four times, and before the fourth visit was over I had become a charter member of an organization he was starting. He called it the 'Telephone Subscribers' Protective Association.' I am still a member of this organization, and, so far as I know, I'm the only member in the world today besides Mr. ----.

"I listened and sympathized with him on every point that he made during these interviews. He had never had a telephone representative talk with him that way before, and he became almost friendly. The point on which I went to see him was not even mentioned on the first visit, nor was it mentioned on the second or third, but upon the fourth interview, I closed the case completely, he paid all his bills in full, and for the first time in the history of his difficulties with the telephone company he voluntarily withdrew his complaints from the Public Service Commission."

Doubtless Mr. ----- had considered himself a holy crusader, defending the public rights against callous exploitation. But in reality, what he had really wanted was a feeling of importance. He got this feeling of importance at first by kicking and complaining. But as soon as he got his feeling of importance from a representative of the company, his imagined grievances vanished into thin air.

---- Dale Carnegie, How to win friends and influence people.

Anonymous said...

I knew it. Gets the grease. :)