“How about a very simple reason? Mass transit costs me more to use in terms of time and money than a car does for where I need to go.
Of course, if I worked in a city where parking was expensive and traffic was awful, I would most likely use transit. “
First, your latter statement makes economic sense.
“Free” roads vs. mass transit is a false dichotomy.
1. They are both publicly funded mass transit programs paid for through taxes.
I used to file motor fuel tax returns for Amoco many years ago. The returns were hundreds of millions of dollars per month, just for *state* motor fuel taxes, not including federal. That’s not “free” and it’s not cheap. Roads and roadway related taxes aren’t limited to motor fuels taxes, either. We can’t count on the price of a gallon of gas to clue us in on the true cost of driving a car. Our faithful politicians have successfully shielded us from that burden.
Just because we don’t see the full cost of our trips every time we get into our cars doesn’t mean we aren’t paying for them.
2. There are alternatives to publicly funded mass transit systems. The public/private tollway here in Houston (which I opposed) has been pretty successful. If you want to drive in a faster lane, you have to carpool or pay more. A lot of folks pay. My company buys our bus tickets to free up parking downtown, which costs them a lot more. If it makes economic sense to take a bus in a city, someone will start routes. The government should not make regulations to stop them.
If we oppose mass transit on principle, we should oppose mass transit, including public roads. However, given the choice of “mass transit” by bus and train or mass transit by car and road, I’m not sure the latter is the cheaper of the two in most cases. Car payments, inspections, repairs, licenses, insurance and tax on much of the above all increase the cost of driving.
The real travesty here is the hidden nature of the costs of transit when the government runs the show. As in healthcare, the consumer never faces the economic consequences (or, more accurately, never directly sees the consequences) of their decisions.
Houston is a very poor example of public transportation though. Houston is primarily served by bus, and the problem with busses is that they have to operate on the roads. Public transportation works best when it takes people off the roads. The subway system in NYC makes NYC possible. The city could not exist if everyone had to use the roadways.