Originally Posted by
Mobile 155
TP,
this is so sad it is amusing. If the suggestion is that we would be better off poor I suggest you go visit any third world country without the resources to fund highway projects. Poverty is not a happy state. These are your words.
From your last post:
“If all those projects weren't funded at all, and if road and highway infrastructure were funded at a minimum level, then many more people simply wouldn't have the incomes necessary to afford cars and driving and the US wouldn't be able to give up on mass transit,i.e. because people would have to pool their resources instead of being able to buy one car per person or even per household.”
now for a society that can’t afford roads it is hard to imagine them affording proper mass transit. Still I reject you plea for poverty. Those were your words under quotes not mine. And I know I said it was worthless to quote you but this had to be shown.
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.