goodnightjohnwayne wrote:
Actually, the construction of the original interstate highway system, in terms of route miles, was largely completed. Arguable, there should have been a continued investment of increasing the number of lane miles, even in rural segments.
First off, why? The rural segments are mostly free flowing, and often underutilized, even with the existing number of lanes. Why add lanes when the traffic just isn't there, likely never will be there? Second, this to me would be no more justified than laying rail in places where the population density just couldn't generate sufficient ridership. Either one represents a subsidy of those who
choose to live in these remote areas. Now I don't care where people choose to live, but there is no basis for subsidizing/continuing to subsidize what represents an inefficient use of limited resources. If a developer makes the decision to build a new housing tract in the middle of nowhere, then let them pay to build the roads and power lines there, then pass those costs onto the buyers. There's no benefit to me, the taxpayer, to subsidize such ventures.
First of all, you're confusing the early post-war phase of automobile based suburban transportation with the real estate speculation based outer suburbs, or "exurbs," of the recent economic bubble. Only in places like Detroit and Cleveland are you seeing the original inner ring of suburbs falling into poverty. The tax base issues you're referring have more to do with economic decline in anti-business states like Michigan, rather than the original, intended population density of post-war suburbs.
Yes, I'm mostly referring to the outer suburbs here. As a general rule they have much lower population density than the ones established decades ago, along with requiring more subsidies per capita to maintain. Many of the older, inner suburbs have long been served by rail, and have sufficient tax base to support their network of roads. It's mostly what was built in the last 25 years which is on the decline.
This is the sort of radicalized, anti-automotive stance that undermines public support for passenger rail. If you give people the choice between a massively expensive HSR system, with equally expensive LRT feeder lines, all of which require massive taxpayer subsidies both in terms of capital costs and operating costs - perhaps $1-2 trillion to build such a network and then $100-200 billion per year to subsidize its operation, and a status quo that allows you to get in your personal automobile and drive anywhere you please, without any additional taxburden, which system will the voters choose? Of course, the least informed but most vehement HSR advocates don't want voters to make the choice on the basis of the fact, but on carefully selected lies and misrepresentations.
Given a choice, most voters would just prefer to have the potholes filled.
Here you go again with the same type of non-response to any suggestion that the auto's day in the sun is over. This isn't my opinion. I've read lots of things suggesting this trend is real and happening. You have fewer miles driven per car, starting even before gas prices rose in 2008. The number of vehicles per capita has dropped slightly. The public is increasingly amenable to getting out of their cars, and into trains, when such trains are convenient. This was almost unthinkable even ten years ago. Moreover, there is a shift in attitudes, especially among the under 20 crowd who will help decide policy in the coming decades. Yet all you can think to do is shoot the messenger. Changing the existing system from an auto-dominated one to a
more-balanced one is hardly radical. Like I've said many times, use each mode where it's the best fit. You don't use high-speed trains to do grocery shopping, and by the same token it makes little sense to use the auto for every transportation role. The auto's best fit is local, low-speed errand duty with indeterminant paths and lots of stops. That's the role we should continue to support it in via paying for local roads. From an energy, comfort, safety, and time standpoint if you're going any distance it makes more sense to use high-speed rail.
While I won't question your figures, did you bother to figure out what we've spent annually on direct and indirect subsidies of automobiles? The figure is way higher than $200 billion just for pollution-related damage alone ( some rough estimates put the pollution cost at over $1 per gallon of gas ).
Driving is heavily subsidized whether you care to admit it or not. Of course, it seems subsidies are only a bad thing if they go for things you don't personally see the need for, like rail. I'll guess that the existing system of roads will require somewhere on the order of $1 - 2 trillion to bring back into a state of good repair. Most importantly, the status quo you preach, which will in fact require huge additional tax burdens to maintain, exacts an additional burden on users which the alternative doesn't. Namely, you have to purchase, maintain, and operate the automobile yourself, as opposed to just paying the fare. This fact already shuts out a significant portion of the population from using the roads they subsidize. Either they can't physically drive, can't afford a car, or both. Right now this demographic is left with a piecemeal way of getting around. Indeed, in many places they really have no way of getting around. In short, the auto's day in the sun is coming to an end largely because it is expensive, and far from a universal solution. This isn't my opinion, it's FACT based on demographics. As the demographic who can't or won't own automobiles increases, you'll see a cooling of the idea that we should subsidize auto travel at present levels, along with greater political support for making drivers pay the true social costs of their driving. Recent transportation policy even acknowledged this fact by placing the needs of bicycles and pedestrians as equal to those of the auto. The auto will never disappear of course, but I see a future where it is largely relegated to local errand duty in what are currently the inner suburbs. In some cities, notably places like Manhattan, it may indeed be banned from use for the simple reason of being superfluous ( and incidentally the idea of banning autos from Manhattan has been proposed on and off since the early 1960s, and one of these days 10 or 20 years hence I've little doubt such proposals will garner sufficient political support to pass ).
In short, right now we have a massive transportation problem in this country which will make us increasingly uncompetitive on the world stage if we continue to stick our heads in the sand. The auto-centric system, even ignoring the costs I mentioned earlier, exacts a huge economic toll in terms of time on the populace. Moreover, this can't be fixed by just building more roads. Most places with traffic congestion not only lack room for more roads, but have a populace prepared to fight tool and nail against the idea of road expansion. Witness what happened in Queens last decade when it was proposed to widen the Long Island Expressway ( and incidentally for all the inconvenience this would have caused, the end result would have been a big 30 seconds saved for LI commuters ). Bottom line is the problem we have can't be fixed without putting alternatives in place, notably rail in all forms. Nothing else gives as such large capacity, in relatively small space. And rail is much more amenable to putting underground in places where putting it above ground would disrupt existing communites. The same communites which might vehemently fight an expanded highway, or even an elevated railway, couldn't care less if a TBM dug a railway tunnel right under their noses. Expensive? Sure, but so is continuing the status quo. As 2nd trick op mentioned, there is indeed an economic necessity to replace the auto-centric system with something a lot more balanced, especially around major metropolitan areas. In places like Iowa or Dakota of course there is really no alternative to the personal auto for most transportation needs. If such areas see rail at all, it will be simply because it's passing through while connecting points of higher population density.
EDIT: Thinking about your figures of $1 - $2 trillion to build it, plus up to $200 billion annual subsidies, I'll gladly take those in a heartbeat. Spread among 300 million people, my share comes to an initial outlay of around $7000 tops, plus an annual payment of about $700. There's no car I could purchase and operate for that kind of money. Just the insurance alone would exceed $700 annually. So bill me. I'll glad pay knowing in return I'll get a system which will save me money over a private auto ( which I don't nor can I afford to own, nor would I want to even if I could ).
