Originally Posted by
tandempower
You're twisting my words. What I said is that people couldn't all afford cars for themselves personally, or even at the household level, if it weren't for all the public investments in alternative transportation and infrastructure at levels that fund car-purchases and driving-expenses at the individual level.
I don't think there would be poverty if most people gave up driving and took a lower salary since they didn't need to pay those driving expenses. I think the costs of alternative transportation and infrastructure would then be more affordable, so there would be good quality of life without everyone driving.
My point is that as long as people are all buying cars and driving with the money they're making from transit and infrastructure projects, driving is going to remain the dominant transportation form and alternatives are going to underutilized and too expensive.
That is just what happens when a society grows too dependent on ubiquitous driving and the high per-capita costs that come with that.
Poverty precedes the era of the train and the era of the automobile and bus.
In the old days, people in poverty walked. Move up from walking and you might have a donkey or mule. Usually it took more money to have a horse over a donkey or mule.
Infrastructure back then would be wooden bridges and dirt paths. Many towns only had dirt streets.
TP, it sounds like you're a proponent of the Degrowth Movement. Degrowth would have to happen naturally with collapse of society as we know it. Most people in developed countries aren't about to give up their current way of life willingly.