On the other hand, the rightist love for cars and driving is pure ressentiment - cars drive on roads built with public funds and maintained with public funds.

Most "leftist" advocates for public transit wouldn't be caught dead on a bus.

Well, public funds which are mostly collected from the users of the roads, at a rate generally commensurate with how much they use the roads, via tolls, gasoline taxes, and registration fees.

(Kind of like people who advocate public education and send their own kids to private schools.)

Now that I'm in the 'burbs I wish I could take it to Red Sox games but it's virtually impossible. Getting to the game is fine but getting out it is such a mad scene trying to get to a subway that I have to add 45-60 minutes to the commute out. The difference between "get home at 11" and "get home at midnight" is a pretty big one if I want to function in the morning.

I just think it's funny how city planners think everybody else should take the bus, so that's there less traffic on the road for them to deal with.

Most "leftist" advocates for public transit wouldn't be caught dead on a bus.

I assume you have data to back this up? For what it's worth, I take the bus all the time.

Would it be better if LA and Houston and Atlanta had built subways in the 1900's and grown up around them? Sure.

Well, that's supposed to be the case, but it's not 1-to-1.

In other words, I, who don't drive, am subsidizing roads.

On the other hand, the rightist love for cars and driving is pure ressentiment - cars drive on roads built with public funds and maintained with public funds. Even if you don't "believe in" global warming, it doesn't follow that you would want to do things which produce more carbon emissions - there's no reason for anyone to think that carbon emissions are a good thing. This is pure ressentiment, the embrace of an idea or practice entirely because you expect it to piss off people you dislike.

It's also a public good to have a developed road network that can get you anywhere you'd like efficiently. Roads can reach the 95% of the country mass transit can never hope to reach efficiently.

Cars live by no schedule but yours, and go where you want them to, not where some ####### in city hall says they have to.

That's why I said mostly

Heck - wanna solve the postal service's fiscal problems? You don't need to muck with the postal workers benefits and salary packages -- just let the USPS charge market rates to serve the 15 people in the middle of Nowhere, Wyoming or whatever... It's a heck of lot cheaper to maintain a mail pickup and delivery system within an enclosed few square miles of millions than thousands of square miles of a few hundred.

Once you factor in externalities, I would imagine that Public Transit gives better bang for the buck than cars do.

I would bet so, too -- beyond maintenance of the infrastructure, we would also need to account for:

1) Police/traffic control and costs... We have transit cops, of course, but I'm betting the total cost of policing the transit system is lower than the cost of highway patrol, et al.

2) Add in other emergency response costs -- I'd be willing to bet that a lot more money for everything from ambulance response to the cost of medical treatment is higher for motor travel than public transit.

Well, that's supposed to be the case, but it's not 1-to-1. For example, the gas tax is supposed to cover for the Interstate Highway System. For a long time that was true, except people started using less gas (while driving as much) because cars became more efficient. Since the gas tax has barely budged in the last 20 years, the revenue is drying up. In 2008, for the first time in the Interstate Highway System's history, they had to raid the General Fund to cover an $8 billion budget gap. In other words, I, who don't drive, am subsidizing roads. Furthermore, most of the damage to roads and bridges comes from trucks (there is a clear correlation with axel weight), but efforts to add taxes have been persistently fought by the trucking industry. This is a big reason the transportation infrastructure in the country is in such poor shape.

I don't have a problem with mass transit; it's really the best option in a lot of places. I just think it's funny how city planners think everybody else should take the bus, so that's there less traffic on the road for them to deal with.

Is it any different than how the chattering classes bemoan the lack of good jobs with benefits for the working class, and then hire illegal aliens to be their nannies and gardeners so they don't have to pay SS tax and workers' comp insurance?

I know this is your particular hobby horse, but it's a nonsensical comparison. The alternative to hiring illegal aliens typically is not being able to afford a nanny or gardener at all. Illegal aliens are creating jobs by being willing to work cheaply; they're not taking jobs from the working class.

So I guess I don't understand the controversy.

Finding legal laborers is difficult, according to Bookman, because of the low pay and lack of benefits, with an average pay of around $8 per hour.

My response, so pay freaking more than $8/hr with no benefits!!! Farm labor is tough grueling work. It should pay more than that.

If we want to live in a society w/o a large permanent underclass, we're going to have to be willing to pay a little more for labor intensive goods.

You don't need to muck with the postal workers benefits and salary packages -- just let the USPS charge market rates to serve the 15 people in the middle of Nowhere, Wyoming or whatever... It's a heck of lot cheaper to maintain a mail pickup and delivery system within an enclosed few square miles of millions than thousands of square miles of a few hundred.

Once again: compared to Matt and most Primates, I am a "right-winger". (Hell, compared to some of you, I'm a friggin' Nazi.) Compared to people in the world at large, however, I'm pretty much in the middle, maybe a li'l bit to the right (especially since 9/11).

Yup; that'll go well. "Hey, Ma Kettle. Mailing in your electric bill is now going to cost five bucks, because of where your grandfather decided to settle. No, stop crying."

I've been a registered independent for almost twenty years.

The question is whether the current arrangement of transit infrastructure and funding is optimal, and whether it's good. you seem to be suggesting that it's currently optimal, and so there should be no changes. People who think there should be far more construction and funding of mass transit disagree, as do people who think mass transit should be de-funded in favor of personal (car) transit.

people whose first (and last, and only) idea is always "raise taxes and give the money to our key voting blocs!"

Nobody who chooses to live in Wyoming gets to ##### about the small inconveniences therein.

And more to the substance of the thread: I'm three years out of college and still haven't needed to buy a car. I specifically chose to go to grad school in a place (Berkeley) where that's possible, and I don't have kids, FWIW. I walk, bike, and use BART, the local bus service and Zipcar, and I save a lot of money relative to my peers with cars. Living in a place with workable transit is a huge deal to me.

David Nieporent (now, with children) Posted: December 13, 2011 at 11:27 AM (#4015091)

I know this is your particular hobby horse, but it's a nonsensical comparison. The alternative to hiring illegal aliens typically is not being able to afford a nanny or gardener at all. Illegal aliens are creating jobs by being willing to work cheaply; they're not taking jobs from the working class.

The hope, of course, is that if we make expansion of mass transit a national priority more places will have an incentive to promote higher densities locally.

What's "fair" for Ma Kettle is "unfair" for the other people who have to subsidize her existence. The value of having a pretty huge, subsidized rural population is just not clear to me, whereas I understand why having lots of people in close proximity to one another (ie, in cities) makes sense.

of course, you don't give a darn. you'd rather just have this society where anyone with money can pay a worker as little as they want to - sort of like the ole mine owners/miners - get rid of all government programs to feed and house the poor and let us all starve to death or live like sewer rats in our little ghettos

I used to love taking the DC Metro; it used to be truly great. Well, I don't know what the hell happened, but in the last couple of years or so it has gone almost completely down the shitter. The more expensive it has become to ride, the worse the service has gotten.

It has gotten to the point where I would rather pay ten bucks to park in a lot than four or five bucks to ride that awful system, and it's going to stay that way for me until they fix their issues.

This seems like a goofy argument.

In denser, hub-and-spoke-ish areas, mass transit makes sense and gets used. In spread-out suburban areas, it doesn't make as much sense and isn't used as much. In rural areas, it makes no sense and isn't used.

I live in the Chicago (far) north suburbs. When I worked in the Loop, I usually took the Metra train. It made sense: I could avoid traffic, read a book, and even save money. When I got a new job in the suburbs, I drove, because taking a bus would've made the commute take 3+ hours. NFW.

So I guess I don't understand the controversy.

Well, he expended public funds on popular domestic programs (like Medicare). To the right wing, that's apparently the road to Bolshevism.

The difference is that one party wants to take the existing pile of money and give to their pals, while the other party wants to take the existing pile of money plus a bunch more and give to their pals. Charming.

What wound up happening, I think, is that the GOP went too far right and left for me -- too far right on social questions, and too far left financially. Neither party is interested in anything resembling fiscal restraint: GWBush, who the media considered to be little more than a right-wing fanatic, wound up expanding the government by billions of dollars. Of course, that's better than to our current prez, who basically flushed a trillion dollars down the toilet. (Well, at least the economy is back and people have jobs again, right? Oh. Never mind.)

Washington (CNN) -- A federal safety board called Tuesday for a nationwide ban on the use of cell phones and text messaging devices while driving.

The recommendation is the most far-reaching yet by the National Transportation Safety Board, which in the past 10 years has increasingly sought to limit the use of portable electronic devices -- recommending bans for novice drivers, school bus drivers and commercial truckers. Tuesday's recommendation, if adopted by states, would outlaw non-emergency phone calls and texting by operators of every vehicle on the road.

It would apply to hands-free as well as hand-held devices, but devices installed in the vehicle by the manufacturer would be allowed, the NTSB said.

To me, if you're going to take a "libertarian" position that we should not have a massive welfare state (which I agree with), you have to be willing to make systematic structural changes to the economy that make decent jobs available to the working class. Otherwise, you're condemning a large swathe of the population to a perpetual underclass. That's immoral.

Of course, that's better than to our current prez, who basically flushed a trillion dollars down the toilet.

So, is this about safety, or is it about some goodies for certain businesses that install and provide service for the cell phones in the cars?

The hope, of course, is that if we make expansion of mass transit a national priority more places will have an incentive to promote higher densities locally.

Promoting density in rural areas is never going to work, because many people who live in rural areas live there because --- get ready for this --- they don't want to live in a dense environment. And this country happens to have plenty of room, so it's possible to have less dense living environments.

Okay, maybe that last part was over the top.) The thing is, so many of these planners think that people don't really want to live in low-density suburbs, that we've somehow been tricked into it by government policy. Many of us do. We like driving. We don't want to live on top of our neighbors (figuratively or literally). We want yards, not parks. We don't want to depend on mass transit. I'm not saying everyone does, or should, feel that way; I'm saying that some people actually do.
...
This. Poll WY residents and they will likely tell you: 1. Leave me alone, 2. I hate cities (and the negative that they bring, even as they freely trade away the good things of a large city) 3. Where can you get this (points over your shoulder at Rockies/Tetons/Big Horns/Bison/Elk/Bear/miles of barren arid land/minerals. It's not like these are people starving for a way to move to Billings, Boise, Fort Collins, Denver or Salt Lake City.

The cost of maintaining a subway system in NY is ~$5 per ride. Why shouldn't the riders pay that?