Nation’s highways remain an issue for an Obama second term

[cpzilliacus]

Cell phone towers in the backcountry of large parks is not a good plan.  First, there's not the density of population there to justify them.

(1) How many lives might be saved by such cell phone towers?

(2) There are many (rural) areas where installing telephone and electric distribution lines where density did not justify running them.  In spite of that, the lines were run to many of those places.

A handful of calls every day isn't going to pay for it.  Second, the cell phone towers need landlines or microwave links between them and power to run them.

Might that be a good application for solar powered sites with storage battery array?

The backcountry is not electrified, and I wouldn't want it to be.

Agreed. 

Third, encouraging people to depend on calling 911 rather than making sure their party is self-reliant is a mistake.  Even if you get through, in the best case it's at least several hours before a rescue helicopter can get there.  Worst case, the same snowstorm that's got the hikers or climbers in trouble also grounds the helicopters and it takes a week to get a rescue party there.  Fourth, cell phone batteries don't last long enough for most emergencies.  The batteries go dead just when you need them the most.  Fifth, reception is spotty in any rural area.  If you want something dependable, get a satellite phone.  Or if it's just emergencies you're concerned with, a personal locator beacon. They're affordable and connect to satellites.

Do you by chance watch "Alaska State Troopers" on the National Geographic Channel?

Not so long ago, there was an episode where a person badly injured in a snow machine crash.  The troopers were able to reach the victim by their own snow machines, but were not able to use their own police radios, nor their cell phones because of being in a dead area.

Sixth, people yammering inanities on their cell phones is one thing I go to wilderness areas to get away from.  If you can't stand to be without your cell phone for a day, go hang out at a mall.  Or consider therapy.

No dispute.

[kphoger]

If you want something dependable, get a satellite phone.  Or if it's just emergencies you're concerned with, a personal locator beacon. They're affordable and connect to satellites.

Seriously.  If you're going to be in the wilderness, that far away from other people, then there is technology out there for you which doesn't rely on cell signal.  If you're just Joe Schmoe who can't surf the web from a business meeting at a state park where there are dozens of other people around, then I tend to not be very sympathetic to your plight.  I, for one, would never venture out on a trek assuming that I would get cell signal the entire way; that's simply foolishness.

[Beltway]

I never took you for a Krugman Keynesian. I may have to reevaluate my opinion of you into a more favorable category.

Any category is more favorable than a Krugman Keynesian.

Paul Krugmann is a quack.  If we followed his recommendations for national borrowing, our national debt would double if not triple, and we would look like Greece.

[NE2]

Says the guy who regularly posts pseudoscience like 'abiotic oil'.

[Beltway]

Read what Krugmann writes, if you want to know what he believes about national borrowing.

[Scott5114]

Okay, at this point, I am calling this thread unsalvageable. Cell phones, Krugman, borrowing, abiotic oil, and Greece are not road-related.

END