--- Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> There is a popular trope on the left alleging that
> the auto industry did the
> public transit in to promote car sales. While there
> is some truth in ii, it
> is a rather poor explanation. Public transit was
> killed by people
> abandoning it for cars, and any corporate
> maneuvering was mainly pulling the
> plug to end the agony. Please note that public
> transit survived in place
> where there was a demand for it.
But it was greatly reduced everywhere, including urban areas, and it is a continuous fight to keep funding up even where ridership is increasing.
A trope you don't hear so much outside of urban planning circles is how much gummint intervention is involved in pushing cars. The interstate system is/was a massive federal program that bulldozed many an urban neighborhood. Even now I doubt there are many states whose gas tax and permit revenues cover more than half of road expenditures -- I'd have to fact-check this, but I know it's true in a number of states. That's without getting into federal money, environmental damage, ongoing maintenance of empire, etc. etc.
I agree that irrational car use goes hand in hand with US-specific cultural pathologies, but the perverse economic incentives that favor car use here are huge. I think it meshes well with a theme that comes up often on the list -- how much elites encourage atomization and alienation in the US.
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