Comment by ericmay

If you’re thinking about New York and San Francisco when you’re thinking about transportation you are starting off on the wrong frame of reference. Think more like a random city or town in Europe, perhaps Bordeaux since I was recently reading about it. Smaller cities/towns with tiny populations shouldn’t dictate how everyone else lives and suck up resources and taxpayer dollars for asinine highway projects.

Most of America lives in urban areas. Rural communities, where they exist, have no need to change. Running busses out there doesn’t make sense. What also doesn’t make sense is, for example, in Ohio the Ohio Department of Highways (ODOT) spending a billion dollars to “ease congestion” in downtown Columbus, Ohio so that folks can live further away and drive to work or whatever. It’s a tax subsidy that I don’t think we should pay, and it’s not a good use of money objectively either.

Second we don’t have to make this trade off you are imagining. I live in a European style (as close as you can probably get in America) neighborhood with shops and restaurants within walking distance. I also have a large garage (with only one car) and live in a single family home, and live alongside duplexes, triplexes, big houses, small houses, shops, and more. Today I can use my car as you’d expect. But what’s missing is the ability to not use my car to go to the grocery store and get a steak or something.

With respect to safety you can just avoid the problem by switching products. Walk, bike, rail and you don’t have to get in a car crash.

The trade-offs that folks think must exist simply do not exist. The trade-offs are do we spend an absorbent amount of money, have more people die, face insurance premiums that increase with no recourse, have to be upset at gas prices, &c.

Or do we just not do that?