407 Toll Highway

February 28, 2012

Maybe we could start saving up a few million to invest in the next leg?

Do the existing owners get the revenue from further extensions?

hmm.. 17.2 M$ profit /y / 2.3 M/km  = ~7.2 $/Km/y/car

[revenue per trip is different at ~5.89$] Just under 25$/ vehicle/trip  for the whole length.

The actual Cost of driving on 407 is ~ 4.36/km because some people take multiple trips.

The Peak Period toll rate for light vehicles travelling in the Regular Zone between Highway 403 and Brock Road will be 24.20 cents per kilometre. 18 wheeler's pay about 3 times the car rate.  http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/900817/407-etr-announces-2012-rate-schedule

[profit per km/y.. 17.2M$/108k = 159 000 $]

Telegraph by Towers

Telegraph by Towers 
from "The Information" by James Gleick

// 1793 \\

The Chappe Telegraph visual telegraphy:

in 1793. He persuaded the Convention to appropriate six thousand francs for 
the construction of three telegraph towers in a line north of Paris, seven to 
nine miles apart. The Chappe brothers moved rapidly now and by the end of 
summer arranged a triumphant demonstration for the watching deputies. The 
deputies liked what they saw: a means of receiving news from the military 
frontier and transmitting their orders and decrees. They gave Chappe a salary, 
the use of a government horse, and an official appointment to the post of 
ingénieur télégraphe. He began work on a line of stations 120 miles long, from 
the Louvre in Paris to Lille, on the northern border. In less than a year he had 
eighteen in operation, and the first messages arrived from Lille: happily, news 
of victories over the Prussians and Austrians. The Convention was ecstatic. One 
deputy named a pantheon of four great human inventions: printing, gunpow
der, the compass, and “the language of telegraph signs.”
Construction began on stations in branches extending east to Strasbourg, west 
to Brest, and south to Lyon. When Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799, 
he ordered a message sent in every direction—“Paris est tranquille et les bons 
citoyens sont contents” (“Paris is quiet and the good citizens are happy”)—and 
soon commissioned a line of new stations all the way to Milan. The telegraph 
system was setting a new standard for speed of communication, since the only 
real competition was a rider on horseback.

          If you’ll only just promise you’ll none of you laugh,
          I’ll be after explaining the French telegraph!
          A machine that’s endow’d with such wonderful pow’r,
          It writes, reads, and sends news fifty miles in an hour.
          …
          Oh! the dabblers in lott’ries will grow rich as Jews:
          ’Stead of flying of pigeons, to bring them the news,
          They’ll a telegraph place upon Old Ormond Quay;
          Put another ’board ship, in the midst of the sea.
          …
          Adieu, penny-posts! mails and coaches, adieu;
          Your occupation’s gone, ’tis all over wid you:
          In your place, telegraphs on our houses we’ll see,
          To tell time, conduct lightning, dry shirts, and send news.

\\ song 1794 //

Exporting Coal Pollution

$$$  Another tale of the Dollar $$$

So many dollar stores , So little Chinese foreign exchange.

Hmm..  ?? Lets see how we can get some foreign exchange back from China.. Hmm
Lets build 4 seaports on the Left Coast and ship all the American
Powder river coal to china.
We would much rather have Tar Sands oil from Canada and Natural Gas.

The main working coal export Terminals are Ridley and Westshore
terminals in Canada , shipping ~ 7 Million Tons /y
http://www.westshore.com/
http://www.rti.ca/en_landing.html

The planned but not yet approved ones are in the USA. 
The Millenium Bulk Terminals and the 
Port Westward project are the 2 largest with shipping capacity of  67 million Tons /y

Closer to Canada is the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal with a
capacity of 44Million tons /y , currently in the approval stage of
planning.
http://gatewaypacificterminal.com/

Doing the math is not too hard in this case. We can look forward to a
sixfold increase in the volume of coal leaving the west coast for
China , Real Soon Now , and a tenfold increase a little later..

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/coal_export_terminals_and_china_should_the_u_s_ship_its_dirty_coal_to_china_.html