(12-20-2016, 12:17 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: @SammyOES
I'm curious, do you disagree with the point that mass driving, especially in urban areas causes several huge negative external costs? Does driving not cause pollution, injuries, deaths, urban sprawl and social problems. If you want evidence for those things, I can provide sources.
And yes, they do provide benefits, but you again equate transit and mass motoring. Mass motoring has these costs, mass transit doesn't, yet the provide the same benefits.
We *should* subsidize transit, because we *should* subsidize transportation because of all the economic benefits you continually point out. We *shouldn't* subsidize automobile travel as much, because most of the benefits can be reaped through mass transit instead of mass motoring. We get a far better ROI.
Dan, I agree there are significant costs. Our disagreement seems to be on the significant benefits. To claim that mass transit and mass motoring provide the same benefits is just obviously wrong to me. Like, completely, obviously, wrong. And this is coming from someone that has never driven to/from work. I lived in NYC for a number of years and very rarely drove and now I work from home.
I'd even agree with your last statement in certain situations (mostly to do with population density). But when you try to make it apply to something like the whole tri-cities I think you're fundamentally wrong.
Edit: I think pollution especially is a big problem. That's why I'm a big fan of mass transit. But fundamentally its also a different problem, and can be addressed through other means as well.