--- Michael Smith <mjs at smithbowen.net> wrote:
> end of the wedge. Once you begin to establish the
> principle of internalizing
> the social costs of driving, you're on your way to
> dethroning the car.
>
> Paying eight bucks to encumber some of the
> crowdedest street space
> in the world with a ton of metal doesn't actually
> seem so outrageous.
> A peak-hour round-trip ride from White Plains to
> Grand Central on the
> Metro-North railway costs more than twice that, and
> nobody regards this as
> an outrage, though there's a much better case for
> making the train ride
> free than for keeping Midtown driving free.
>
[WS:] I cannot help but notice that the pricing of public transit in this country is such as not to "dethrone" the car. Prime example - pre-tax commuter employee benefits (i.e. the amount of tax free dollars that can be used for commuting to work) are $110 for public transit, but $220 for car parking i.e. transit riders receive only the half of the tax break that the car drivers get. The pricing of trains and commute passes are such as not to offer any competitive advantage to driving (excluding the cost of the cars, of course.) For example, it would cost me $255 a month to commute between DC and Baltimore via transit and about $160 a month to drive (that includes only gas.)
It seems that the owners of this country are very careful not to dethrone the car and they enjoy full support of right wing populists and useful idiots on the Left.
Wojtek
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