Should Infrastructure go Into More Roads or Public Transit?
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Obviously it should go into roads. The private automobile - ideally an SUV or pick-up truck - is a symbol of American freedom and prosperity, and every productive, hardworking, and patriotic adult will own at least one. The experience of public transportation - sitting on crowded buses with smelly, lazy bums, vagrants, transients, and welfare people - is not fitting to the American citizen, and should stay in third-world countries like China, India, and France where it belongs. Therefore, we should work to build new roads, highways, and lanes and maintain existing ones, while defunding wasteful public transportation and simultaneously making it more affordable to drive oneself through reduced fuel taxes and tax credits for first-time purchasers of cars.
Obviously it should go into roads. The private automobile - ideally an SUV or pick-up truck - is a symbol of American freedom and prosperity, and every productive, hardworking, and patriotic adult will own at least one. The experience of public transportation - sitting on crowded buses with smelly, lazy bums, vagrants, transients, and welfare people - is not fitting to the American citizen, and should stay in third-world countries like China, India, and France where it belongs. Therefore, we should work to build new roads, highways, and lanes and maintain existing ones, while defunding wasteful public transportation and simultaneously making it more affordable to drive oneself through reduced fuel taxes and tax credits for first-time purchasers of cars.
Definitely we need more public transit. It is inadequate in most metro areas, especially between suburban regions. On the other hand the roads are in a deteriorating state and need rehabilitation. Public transit does not just attract the lowlifes but also professionals as lawyers, pilots, and executives.
Definitely we need more public transit. It is inadequate in most metro areas, especially between suburban regions. On the other hand the roads are in a deteriorating state and need rehabilitation. Public transit does not just attract the lowlifes but also professionals as lawyers, pilots, and executives.
Good thing it attracts professionals. They're the only ones who'll be able to afford renting a car at the ends of the suburban to suburban public transit trips.
If one wants transit, you also need the land use that supports it - offices in downtown buildings and walkable "nodes," not in office parks with acres of parking and "green space" between buildings, for example. We also need residential neighborhoods that are "walkable" - where the streets connect one to another and you can get around easily, including getting to the transit. We need to let apartments get built near transit - there is market demand, but the U.S. has an extreme amount of regulation enforcing low-density across the board. I get frustrated when I hear people demand more transit and then protest the building of an apartment building or office near where they want the transit. Or when they say they are "pro-market" and then protest the building of apartments and townhouses in their city ...
On the other hand, if you want more roads - well, while we may improve things a bit, we have to accept that its virtually impossible to build our way out of congestion (physically and fiscally), so if you live in a larger or growing city, get used to congestion ... it seems some people everywhere complain about "traffic", then support the same old development patterns we have ...
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