Thursday, November 08, 2007

A Light Discussion About Light Rail

FrontBurner | Trey Garrison:
“Mass transit ... more often than not looks like an answer to a question very few ask. Most people like to drive; more rail isn't going to change that. At least as far as I can tell. I've been fooled before.”
Ed Cognoski responds:

Mr Garrison is right. As long as the government subsidizes highways, oil and cars, the rest of us would have to be fools not to prefer driving. Isn't the government about to sink over a billion dollars to pave the Trinity to help suburban drivers get downtown? Hasn't the government already sunk hundreds of billions of dollars into the Persian Gulf protecting the flow of oil, to say nothing of thousands of lives of American military? Isn't the government eventually going to bail out GM's crippling pension obligations?

If the government is doing all that so I can keep driving my SUV, who am I turn my back on its generosity? On the other hand, if the government redirected that money to mass transit, just think of the great system we'd have by now, to say nothing of cleaner air, more allies and independence from oil sheiks. At least as far as I can tell.

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