Um...no. I am conservative and even deep down inside I have no problem with mass/public transit.
Of course, if I worked in a city where parking was expensive and traffic was awful, I would most likely use transit.
Here is the DC area the workers steal the money from the parking and no one goes to jail. This is what I don’t like.
VERY good point. Which make me wonder. Obama grew up on a relativel small island which a care can circle in a couple of hours and in the center of which is a mountain range. I doubt that Barry was itching to get his driver’s license at age 16 like the rest of us. After retirement Harry Truman actually drove himself from Missouri to DC , Canb you imagine Barry—or any of the Princelings we call ex-presidents doing that nowadays?
This author is an idiot and probably doesn’t have anything else to write about.
What I object to are the systems that can't pay for themselves and rely on heavy taxpayer subsidies to get by.
It makes them feel vaguely European, which is also why they bathe infrequently and pretend to care about the World Cup.
Actually, one reason is a lot of us don’t live in cities, and mass transit in rural America would fail to meet the personal and economic needs of people living out here, even if one beggared the economy as a whole to construct such a system. (How much ridership will the Topeka to Salina, KS route via Paxico, Wamego, Manhattan, Chapman, Abilene, and Solomon actually garner? At what cost?)
Conservatives also tend to be more likely to reflect on the fact that others have different conditions than their own, and therefore different needs, so that urban-dwelling conservatives are aware that, however desirable mass-transit use may be in their own circumstances, foisting mass transit on the country as a whole would be a disaster.
Conservatives don’t like ANY of the crap Obozo has planned for his new utopian dictatorship, to wit:
A modern tyrant no longer needs to post burly machinegun toting men on street corners. He controls a population with REGULATIONS and PAPER.
Want to work? Need a WORK PERMIT!
Want a place to live? Need a RESIDENCY PERMIT!
Want to travel? (Only on PUBLIC TRANSIT, of course.) Need a TRAVEL PERMIT or INTERNAL PASSPORT!
Want to eat? Need that FOOD RATION BOOK!
And draconian penalties await those who fail to obey the regulations or help others do so. Thats when the burly armed men appear. And they will just be following orders. Now where have we heard THAT phrase before??
That could NEVER HAPPEN HERE, say you?
Thats what many of you said about Obama!
“archaic, 19th century technology like trains”
False. Trains are the best high tech way to move heavy freight, which is precisely why AMTRAK and highspeed nostalgia should get the h out of the way.
If we truly had competent central planning, the central planner would plan to get the heavy trucks off the highways where they are pounding the pavement and requiring frequent rebuilding.
The real problem with central planning is that it always becomes pressure group du jour planning. In contrast the invisible hand does the same thing that competent central planning would do while avoiding the overhead of the central planners and avoiding the costs of the pressure group du jour.
“archaic, 19th century technology like trains”
False. Trains are the best high tech way to move heavy freight, which is precisely why AMTRAK and highspeed nostalgia should get the h out of the way.
If we truly had competent central planning, the central planner would plan to get the heavy trucks off the highways where they are pounding the pavement and requiring frequent rebuilding.
The real problem with central planning is that it always becomes pressure group du jour planning. In contrast the invisible hand does the same thing that competent central planning would do while avoiding the overhead of the central planners and avoiding the costs of the pressure group du jour.
Mark
To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think theyunsupervised, untutored, and unscriptedare masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make. Time was, the progressive cry was "Workers of the world unite!" or "Power to the people!" Now it is less resonant: "All aboard!"
Certain forms of public transit make sense in certain places. The left think trains belong everywhere regardless of cost ,ridership or needs of the majority of people.
My son and I love to ride the public bus on weekends.
No public transportation pays for itself, ELIMINATE ALL OF IT!!!
If the government wants to start a venture it should require 25% investment of private money. If private money cannot be rasied, then I don't want public money in it. It Warren Buffett won't invest in it, neither should we.