Will I be thrown in jail if I remove the RF chip from my bicycle?

"PWang said:

Will I be thrown in jail if I remove the RF chip from my bicycle?"

The RF chip will be embedded in you, not your bicycle.

Is it just me or does this smack just a little of Big Brother?

We have Big Brother in Houston already.  It is the HCTRA EZ Tag.  And a Q could be used in a simular manor.  Also credit cars!

Exactly where are people driving less? Every time I drive streets and freeways are jammed.

Again, the bureaucrats want to strangle the "golden goose" after they over-tax it.

When you depend on the gasoline tax from drivers, then force the drivers to park their cars, the tax revenue, which they are now trying to divert totally to build transit boondoggles, will decline.

They will then be forced to increase the taxes on other things to then pay to operate the wasteful systems.

PWang,

We don't have Big Brother, rather an Autocratic Mayor, "Citizen Bill."

DominicMazoch said:  "We have Big Brother in Houston already.  It is the HCTRA EZ Tag.  And a Q could be used in a simular manor.  Also credit cars!"

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Just because we already have those things doesn't' mean we want more of it.  Indeed, shouldn't we have had a long, hard societal discussion of the ramifications of these intrusions before we allowed them?  

The gov't slowly acclimates us, and each step we just revel in the convenience factor; happily, unquestioningly accepting all of it...which only "fattens us up" and makes us lazily accepting of the bigger and bigger intrusions to come.

We're selling ourselves out and we seem okay with it.  WTH is wrong with us??

Transit users being billed based on their transportation use? Call me crazy, but I think that's what the fare is for. Why bill people after the fact?

At any rate, higher fares for transit does not push the country toward the goal its leaders have set for so-called energy independence. George Bush is sitting up there suggesting that the country is addicted to oil. McCain is suggesting that the only people doing anything about it are those taking transit.

Due to the availability of a reliable, inexpensive transit system, I used a quarter of a tank.

These neoconservatives in government should get real and develop real solutions. Not everything has to be market-based nirvana; not everything has to be from the University of Chicago.

DominicMazoch

You don't need a HCTRA EZ Tag, Q-card or credit cards. Use cash so you won't be tracked.

Again METREAUX released the June  data after the July BOD meeting.

If you look at the METREAUX offical fixed-route boardings for June 2008, they were a mere 0.83% above boardings June of 2007, and only +2.54% for the 3 quarters of FY2008.  The last four months of Bus Boardings average -0.7% per month.

The estimated tram boardings for June 2008 are also a mere 0.4% above June 2007, where the last four months average is a decline of -0.43% per month!

The Ticket Vending Machine (TVM) revenue for June increased +72% from June 2007.  The average TVM revenue over the past three months is +60%!

Which flat out proves, prior to implementing the Q-Cards, METREAUX had no control over the free rides on the tram, and the estimated boardings for propaganda purposes was comprised of churning the numbers of "forced" poor, minority, elderly, and handicapped bus transit dependent riders and free rides, generally of homeless who wanted not only to escape the elements, but to also leer at and panhandle from the other riders.

Hey, I DO use the above.  If somebody wants to find you, they can.

Oh yeah, the privacy concerns and added expense of tracking everyone's movements 24/7 will go over like a lead balloon. Jeez, just shift more of the gas tax funds to public transit. Converting more of those expensive freeways to tollways might be a good idea, too, particularly if you want to make those who use it pay for it. It seems to have worked well for Beltway 8, the Hardy Toll Road, and Westpark.