Originally Posted by
randya
the only reason it appears to be at a reasonable cost is because motoring is heavily subsidized by taxes at all levels, for roads and other infrastructure, for oil wars, etc., and the cost of all the negative side effects are externalized, i.e. the health costs of breathing air polluted by personal motor vehicles, the cost of cleaning up fuel leaks and groundwater pollution at refineries and gas stations, the damage done to DOI-managed public land leased for oil and gas development, etc.
You're the one with your head in the sand, Serge. And the policies of sprawl, as exemplified by the ADC's worshipful reverence for Houston, the largest unzoned city in the country and a huge clusterf*ck of incompatible development, will continue to perpetuate your little assbackwards mythology until the oil runs out. Pretty sad, really.
Not at all, randya. As long as the costs of motoring to the user are less than the costs of bicycling, motoring will be chosen. Since you have just based your argument on the costs of motoring that are not born by the motorist, then you should be spending your time increasing those costs until cycling becomes cost-effective. Instead of doing what your own argument suggests to be the appropriate strategy, you pester us cyclists by trying to persuade these motorists that the facilities designed by motorists for their own convenience will be so pleasant that these motorists will spontaneously take up cycling, even though motoring is too cheap to give up.