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Because a previous generation of planners believed enough lanes could be built to handle whatever traffic there would be. Look at LA, which later built a subway.
But you are ok when taxpayers pay and subsidisze for Highways - just curious, should highways also pay for themsleves?
I often wonder how this perspective would change if people paid to drive on highways (I use many toll roads but they dont even pay for themselves). Would be interesting if we all paid to use all our transit options and how that would impact everything.
I am really not totally pro transit or pro highway but I find the quoted perspective unrealistic - we all pay for all the modes; PT actually covers a higher percentage via the user than does the highway
Well, none of us are entirely on our own schedules, but if you have to be at work at 8, and it takes 12 minutes to drive and 30 to take the bus, plus 10 minutes to walk to the bus, which would you choose? When I think of all the time I spent waiting for buses, walking to bus stops, walking home from the bus, I'm glad to have a car.
Driving! Not all of us our in that situation. For me, driving is 18 minutes in the car and 8 minutes from where I park, total commute of 26 minutes. The bus is 40 minutes from when i leave my house till i'm in the door (30 minute ride, 10 minute walk). The cost is about the same if I don't count wear and tear on the car. It also gives me a chance to get reading done, whereas my normal commute brings general stress and anxiety. But that's just me.
Gas tax only covers a small portion of the costs for roads, accidents, pollution, and congestion. In addition to higher property tax, we pay higher medical costs due to medical care and deaths due to accidents beyond what is covered by auto insurance. The shared cost of air pollution includes increased hospitalizations for asthma and other repiratory problems.
This has been debated to death already. I don't suspect we're going to change each others' minds so I'm checking out of this thread.
Why are urban planners always trying to force buses, rail systems, bike lanes, etc. down our throats when we're clearly an automobile-centric society? Why are urban planners always trying to coerce people out of their automobiles and onto trains like cattle by enacting high gasoline taxes, using highway funds to subsidize mass transit, and by tearing down roadways to build bicycle lanes? Why is it that urban planners have such contempt for private automobiles?
And don't give me this garbage about how we're all gonna die because cars cause "global warming". First of all, automobiles don't pollute (CO2 is not a pollutant), second there's no such thing as global warming, everyone knows it's just a scheme for rich urban planners in the government to further enrich themselves by taxing us all into poverty in the name of "saving the planet."
Third, we're not running out of oil. On the contrary, there's an abundance of oil. The only problem is that we rely almost 100% on an unstable part of the world to meet our oil supply needs. We could drill our own oil, but for decades urban planners have cut off our access to our own oil because they say it's bad for the environment. Either way, there's more than enough oil. Most urban planners wish we would run out of oil, but it's ain't happening.
Oil is efficient, clean, cheap, and renewable, and it's the lifeblood of our economy. Private automobiles represent freedom, individual liberty, private property, and free enterprise. We would never be such a prosperous society without the invention of automobiles. With automobiles, we can go where we want, when we want, how fast we want, in the comfort and privacy of our own car. It seems to me urban planners want to take that freedom away from us and make us all beholden to the government for our transportation needs.
I guess it makes sense, since this only makes it easier for urban planners to enslave us to a large, central, authoritarian government. Like urban planner economic policies that ensure everyone has the same amount of wealth, no matter how hard they work, socialized (public) transportation ensures everyone has the limited mobility, no matter how much money they have. Ergo, we can't all be rich, so no one should be allowed to be rich. We can't all own fancy cars, so no one should be allowed to own a car (with the exception of rich urban planners of course). Rich urban planners are always the exception to their own rules. Rich urban planners are allowed to have billions of dollars and pay less taxes than the middle class. They're allowed to ride around in limousines while us plebes are forced by the government to ride around packed in buses like cattle. Maybe that's the real reason urban planners want to abolish private automobiles, so that they can have the roads all to themselves, and the peasants are forced into buses and trains. Discuss.
Well, I don't think you'll like this, but this is what I have to say. I hate living in an automobile-centric society. I personally hate it. I don't like it. I was born into, but I want out of it. Before anyone tells me "don't like it, move somewhere else", you don't know everything about me. I can't just pick up and move. I still have to finish college. College tuition is rising where I live, but if I go to another university, my tuition will be even higher. And then the rent will probably be a bit higher, depending on where I go. Then there is the plane ticket. Moving away isn't that simple.
For the record, I don't have a car. A car would be too expensive of an investment for ME. I can't just go into a place and pay for an automobile in cash. I don't have that kind of money. I would have to put in a down payment, and then may car payments for years. And then there is automobile insurance. I don't want to pay insurance to drive a car, but I can understand why insurance is necessary. For my own financial reasons, I don't own a car. Also, gasoline isn't cheap. Do you consider 3.85 USD cheap for gasoline? I don't.
For those reasons listed above, I use the bus, ride a bicycle, or walk.
It is also fitting to note that I live in the metropolitan Atlanta area. This is one of the worst places for cycling, walking, mass transit and anything else that isn't a private automobile. Mass transit in Atlanta is a joke. It doesn't work the way it should. The MARTA rail should be expanded into at least ten of the metropolitan Atlanta counties or at least a regional system. If you ride a bicycle in Atlanta, you're risking your life because of a relatively poor infrastructure of bicycle lanes.
Regardless of how you feel about global warming, the fact is, cars that run on gasoline do put out alot of CO2 and pollution. It's bee scientifically proven. Gasoline is not cheap anymore. 3.85 USD per gallon is alot of money. If you drive a gas guzzler, it's even more expensive. We could drill our own oil, but we would eventually run out, because contrary to what you state, there is not any proof that oil is easily renewable. Oil is a fossil fuel, as in, it's made from fossilized organisms from a long time ago, like when the dinosaurs were alive. Same goes for coal. It will eventually run out for a while because oil taken out of the ground much faster than it could be replentished.
Personally, I would love for all of the urban planners to get together and redesign cities to make them with better mass transit systems, make them more bicycle friendly, make them more pedestrian friendly. That is what I want to see. It is helpful for me if this happens. But as long as I'm stuck where I am, I am going to try and get politically active to make changes where I am.
Why are urban planners always trying to force buses, rail systems, bike lanes, etc. down our throats when we're clearly an automobile-centric society?
+1 for "down our throats"
Quote:
Originally Posted by BirchBarlow
Why are urban planners always trying to coerce people out of their automobiles and onto trains like cattle by enacting high gasoline taxes, using highway funds to subsidize mass transit, and by tearing down roadways to build bicycle lanes? Why is it that urban planners have such contempt for private automobiles?
high gasoline tax?
anyways, no one is forcing anything down your throat....
A growing number of people are starting prefer to live in walkable neighborhoods so that's when they ditch their cars and start using public transportation for all their transportation needs.
This is a social movement and the market is simply responding to it. This isn't some conspiracy to limit your freedoms or make some people rich...
Quote:
Originally Posted by BirchBarlow
Third, we're not running out of oil. On the contrary, there's an abundance of oil. The only problem is that we rely almost 100% on an unstable part of the world to meet our oil supply needs. We could drill our own oil, but for decades urban planners have cut off our access to our own oil because they say it's bad for the environment. Either way, there's more than enough oil. Most urban planners wish we would run out of oil, but it's ain't happening.
how are we not? everytime they have to drill deeper and in more extreme locations to get to the oil because most other places are already depleted
How is this not making sense to you? There exists a fixed amount of oil on this planet and growing population of people is using more and more of it....
What do you think eventually will happen?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BirchBarlow
Like urban planner economic policies that ensure everyone has the same amount of wealth, no matter how hard they work, socialized (public) transportation ensures everyone has the limited mobility, no matter how much money they have. Ergo, we can't all be rich, so no one should be allowed to be rich.
how is that? No one is going to outlaw cars.....If you live in an urban city, what stops you from buying a car and using it for your transportation?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BirchBarlow
We can't all own fancy cars, so no one should be allowed to own a car (with the exception of rich urban planners of course). Rich urban planners are always the exception to their own rules. Rich urban planners are allowed to have billions of dollars and pay less taxes than the middle class.
oxymoron
and now you're bashing the tax code.. so far your post had very little to do with urban planning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BirchBarlow
They're allowed to ride around in limousines while us plebes are forced by the government to ride around packed in buses like cattle. Maybe that's the real reason urban planners want to abolish private automobiles, so that they can have the roads all to themselves, and the peasants are forced into buses and trains. Discuss.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
24,544 posts, read 56,037,872 times
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Just how do Urban planners or anyone else for that matter stop you from driving your precious automobile?
Do they hide outside your house, carjacking kit in hand, just waiting to break into your car before driving it to the wreckers to have it crushed?
Do they put spike strips on the highways stopping you from getting to work?
Didn't think so. Just how is ANYTHING they are doing preventing YOU from living your auto-centric lifestyle?
On the other hand, those who take public transport were and still are being prevented from doing so by greedy developers and the urban planners who work for them, pro-auto local councils and decades of car worship which has disadvantaged millions.
The only reason you're even complaining is because you have to pay a little bit more tax from your fat wallet so that poor single mother can ride on the bus across town to work her cleaning job.
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