Mideast Assembly Thread

[tmthforu94]

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[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I had hoped to wait on this, but since another bill has been introduced, I had my own I'd drafted, which covers more than just the previous governor:

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[tmthforu94]

I would recommend combining my Clause 1 and your Clause 2 - under your amendment, they could be on their first day as Governor and be overtaken by the Speaker. They should have a decent amount of time to get everything updated.

I have a couple more comments to make, but I'll save it for the debate thread, in an effort to not clutter this up.

[tmthforu94]

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[Associate Justice PiT]

     Greetings, Governor tmthforu94 and the Mideast Assembly. I had difficulty finding an appropriate place to address this issue to you all, so I have chosen to do so here.

     The South has recently passed a bill to lobby Dave Leip to create a board for our own region, where we may engage in our own business without confusion and lost threads. I encourage you to consider joining us in our quest for a doctrine of one region, one board. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

     Sincerely, Emperor PiT.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I'll post the same thing I posted on The Atlas forum:

Keep in mind that the more boards we have (even if the threads stay the same), the more strain on the server, worsening the slowness of the forum.  Considering that the Regional Board currently has posts going back to October 28, I see this as unnecessary.  If we were in an ideal situation without current strain on the servers, I'd support it, but not right now.

[tmthforu94]

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[Speed of Sound]

Pardon my interruption everyone, but I just wanted to inform all that, given the change in power and the amount of time passed, I am giving an additional 48 hours to all regions to formally request a portion of the $8 billion from the Transportation Infrastructure Investment Act for the "repair, expansion, or construction of rapid bus lines in metropolitan areas", or to modify the request which was made of the former SoIA. Should you all wish to make any request or modification, please let me know in my Official Department Office. Thank you!

[Gass3268]

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There is no way I will support this or any lowering of our minimum wage. 

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

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There is no way I will support this or any lowering of our minimum wage.  

Yeah, I don't think that I can support this either.

[tmthforu94]

I will be putting in a GM request to try and calculate just how many jobs would be created by lowering the minimum wage to a more practical level. $12.00 stifles job growth - high schoolers can forget about trying to get a part-time job.

I look forward to debating this more in the debate thread - I hope people will have an open mind on this.

[tmthforu94]

Debate time has been abbreviated.  We will now move to a final vote.  This vote will last 24 hours, or until all Representatives have voted.

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I would be interested in doing something similar to this in our region. GM Shua estimated the costs at $2 million. Thoughts?

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

That's interesting... I could go for something like that.  I'd have to hear the pros and cons.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Seeing as there is no legislation being debated, and there is no time to debate legislation, this Assembly is in recess until 12:00 P.M. EST on Friday, when the new session will begin.

Happy Thanksgiving, and enjoy 2 days off.

[tmthforu94]

Following other regions, we should also consider creating a regional seal. I have already spoken to Former Iowa John Engle via a paper and pencil letter, and he has agreed in principle to design it for us.

Looking at other items on the agenda, we will be discussing a jobs bill, as well as issuing funds from the federal government on transportation and on Hurricane Sandy relief. We also have money from the 2010 stimulus that still needs to be used - $3.9 billion, if I recall correctly. As of now, I'd recommend placing part of that on reconstructing area's damaged by the Hurricane, but we'll discuss that in it's own thread.

As I come up with more idea's, I'll add it to this point, in an effort to avoid cluttering. We accomplished a lot of things that needed to be accomplished last session - I hope every Assemblyman can bring at least one or two bills to the table when the new session begins tomorrow.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

And don't forget to swear in.

[tmthforu94]

We also need to make a plan for the money given to us for "for the repair, expansion, or construction of rapid bus lines in metropolitan areas.

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That is our current transportation budget, just to have it out there. We'll have to put something together quickly, as the Department of Internal Affairs wants a response within two weeks on our plan.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

This session of the Assembly will now come to order.  As Dean of the Assembly, I will open the floor to nominations for Speaker.  Nominations will last for 24 hours.

[tmthforu94]

I strongly encourage the Assembly to elect Inks to Speaker again. He has done a wonderful job over the years, and has very extensive knowledge over Mideast law and procedures.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I officially nominate Inks for Speaker.  We may not always agree, but his knowledge of Mideastern Assembly procedure is second to none.

[Kitteh]

I officially nominate Inks for Speaker.  We may not always agree, but his knowledge of Mideastern Assembly procedure is second to none.

Seconded.

[Gass3268]

I officially nominate Inks for Speaker.  We may not always agree, but his knowledge of Mideastern Assembly procedure is second to none.

Thirded

[tmthforu94]

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Introducing this - I know it's terrible, but I want to get a thread going to discuss this. I'm going to have to rely on Assemblymen and others on this bill - metropolitan transportation is something I know very little of, as I've lived in rural areas my entire life.

[Kitteh]

As I stated in the Mideast forum, transportation policy is an interest of mine, so I'd be happy to fill the Governor in.

"Rapid Bus Lines" could be interpreted a number of ways, but the most common meaning is for bus systems that have a dedicated lane in the road separate from cars and enclosed stations more like a rail line rather than just a bus stop. Often times it also refers to routes with bus priority signaling, a cool technology which involves GPS systems in each bus that relay data on bus locations to a central grid controlling streetlights, which then adjust traffic lights to prioritize the buses. So for example if a bus is approaching a light that would otherwise turn red the system keeps it green for an extra 10 seconds. The net result is that buses wait at stoplights very little, which can massively improve travel time, especially in urban areas.

A good picture of what this looks like (from Bogota, Colombia):


Most often the buses will be larger, articulated buses with a higher passenger capacity than "regular" buses:


Also BRT generally has fewer lines with fewer stops and the lines are more publicized and easier to understand than normal bus routes, so that for example you could produce a map that looks more like this:


Rather than this:


The general idea being that the bus system is functionally equivalent to a tram/light rail system  without having to pay the cost of laying down rails. It's supposed to be the best of both worlds; the cheapness of a bus system combined with the ability of a rail system to actually be faster than travel by car in some cases. It is very successful in a lot of developing countries. In North America, though, it's been slower to catch on, partly because a lot of North Americans have an image that buses are slower/less "quality" than rail systems, even when that isn't actually true in that particular case. So it's a tradeoff in some ways; significantly cheaper than a light rail/tram system but potentially attracting fewer riders. It also has somewhat less capacity than a rail system.

Overall, I'd support a bill expanding it.

[tmthforu94]

A spin-off of a bill Governor Scott introduced over in the Northeast:

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