Originally Posted by
tandempower
I'm pretty sure everyone who drives sees it the same way.
Well, no, not at all. Driving in Chicago during the week takes significantly longer than using public transport, and - because parking costs ~$25+ - it is significantly more expensive.
I was optimistic about car-sharing at first but I think public transit, sprawl-reduction, and more bike transit does more to reduce traffic, bustle, and the seas of cars everywhere that come with most people relying on driving.
You might be right in general - but car sharing has the significant advantage that the taxpayers don't have to spend billions of dollars for it. It also makes being bike free easier because you can use the car in those cases where biking wouldn't be convenient - hauling home 50 lb bags of planting soil or whatever.
For me, it would increase the number of times I can bike to work easily. If I have a meeting in the morning for which I need to wear a suit, I tend to just take the car; with the car share, I can drive in but bike home.
These are all reasons why the public resists public transit. At what point do you give in and accept inherently unsustainable growth patterns though? It's like planning death as the culmination of a long-term strategy to live off debt without repayment.
The public resists public transit because - in many places - it will be very expensive and provide worse service. The light rail that my city periodically discusses would cost $1.75 billion (assuming no cost overruns); the city's budget is only $1B annually. Although the proponents hope to recoup 25% of the cost through rider fees, predicting how many people would actually use it is completely speculative.
And I'm not sure how public transit will prevent "inherently unsustainable growth patterns" - I'm not completely sure what patterns you mean. But public transit doesn't stop sprawl; in many cases it enables it, as its main use is often to bring workers into the center city from the suburbs. I.e., it makes it easier for people to not live in the city.
Certain campuses get away with restricting driving, e.g. amusement parks and universities. They also get away with charging high parking fees and tolls to enter their road networks.
Sure, but these campuses also provide on-campus housing. What they're not doing is building a trolley system out to distant apartment complexes. And the reason that the campuses limit driving is generally due to the difficulty of parking on campus and the overall high density of the campus generally.
Local governments are under the *** to keep public roads free and car-friendly, for the most part, because of majoritarianism mainly because the public has proved its ability to block out concern for the long term consequences of unsustainable growth in favor of narrow short-term concerns like continuing to drive the same way they did yesterday and to be able to afford the costs that come with driving.
You say majoritarianism like it is a bad thing. Please explain a better way of spending tax money. Dictatorship?