Comment by bearmode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bearmode | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

My car can take me from my front door to anywhere else in the country that I want to. Often cheaper and/or faster than public transport can in the UK, as well.

My family live a 30 minute drive away, however there are no buses that go directly there. No trains, either.

I would appreciate more public transport, for sure, we absolutely need that as well. More, higher-quality public transport that is ideally available 24 hours.

But nobody is ever going to build that from my front door to my family's. The best I can hope for is to reduce the number of changes I have to make. Right now it would take a bus to the nearest town, another bus to another town in sort of the right direction, another bus to the town center nearest to my family, and then another bus to get me to a street 15 minutes walk away. Even if that drops to two buses, my car will still simply be faster & more convenient.

Quitting cars in cities is a fine goal -- when commuting into cities I tend to get a bus or a train rather than drive, but for everybody that doesn't live in a city, or travels outside of cities, it's simply not possible to get rid of cars. Sheltered personal transport, which largely comes in the form of cars, is not going to go anywhere.

> My car can take me from my front door to anywhere else in the country that I want to.

This is nice, but you absolutely must recognise that the amount you're paying for your car does not begin to match what it costs the country for you to have a car.

Road infrastructure is heavily subsidised by the tax payer.

If you had to pay 3x more to operate your car, would you be more or less likely to be in favour of bolstering public transport?

Population density is definitely a factor, and private vehicle ownership should always be possible. But the sheer size of our current personal vehicles and the tiny amount we pay vs their actual cost to society needs to be addressed.

You forget that the vast majority of taxpayers are those same road users. Even those who don't drive likely still get lifts off of other people. They're not a separate entity. They already are paying for that infrastructure.

And to those who are in the small minority who don't use it, would you also ask childless couples to pay for schools? Or people never intent on flying to pay for airports?

> would you also ask childless couples to pay for schools.

We do.

> people never intent on flying to pay for airports?

We also do.

I think the point I'm making (broadly) is that it appears cheap because a lot of that cost has been bundled into taxes, and spreading taxes over an entire population of people (even those not using roads directly) is going to dilute those costs.

The incidental point then; is that you are not actually paying the entire amount for your usage of the road system.

Heck even if you were to make the argument that "everyone uses the roads" or that everybody at least benefits indirectly: your use of them is adding to wear and tear that is disproportionate to your input to that system.

Please understand that this is not meant as an attack. It's a request to shift your perspective into truly internalising the cost, since you're already paying that cost but not directly; how much would you have to pay directly before you consider changing your mind? How much better do the transport options need to be?

Personally, and I don't require everyone to share my view of course, but living in reach of multiple transport options that are quick, cheap, clean and frequent has really changed my life.

I'm not a heavy drinker, but it's really freeing to not worry about my ability to drink. or to worry about parking, or worry about theft or damage, and also to not worry about getting into a collision (especially when it could just as easily be my fault). It feels extremely liberating. I also understand that cars give similar feelings of liberation in other areas (until you want to drink or park).

So it really is more about understanding convenience trade offs; and really I'm not happy to hear "it's cheap" because honestly; it's not. You're just heavily subsidised.

It frustrates me that nobody seems to think about the cascading effects of subsidizing roads and highways with taxes.

The heaviest users of highways are large shipping trucks and through our taxes we're all subsidizing business models that rely on that infrastructure.

Think about how local businesses, like local farms, are disappearing left and right because they can't compete on pricing and convenience. How much more competitive could they be if we weren't all charitably subsidizing infrastructure largely used by their competitors?

There's not a form of transportation in the USA that is not heavily subsidized, so it's almost not worth bothering with. What roads do the buses drive on? What is the farebox recovery? What are fuel taxes? Who clears the bike paths?

Probably the only unsubsidized form of transportation is walking across a field, wearing down your own path.

In fact, some transit should be sold as enhancing the drivers; those people will never use it but everyone likes fewer cars on the road.

I agree with your last point, it's better to frame things as for societal good, because ultimately it's better for drivers that there's less drivers on the road.

However, I do take exception to your "everything is subsidised" argument; without even digging into it I can tell you for sure that trains have at least an order of magnitude less investment per km than roads do; and that's for existing infrastructure not to mention how much that lack of investment in new infrastructure has taken. -- Put another way: you can give me $1 and another person $1billion and claim that we both received money; the amount is important to acknowledge.

>We do.

Exactly. So what's the issue with people who don't drive also contributing to road infrastructure?

Yes, a lot of the cost is bundled into taxes. But that isn't unique to roads & cars, that happens everywhere. Again, are you going to ask couples with children to truly internalise the cost of public schooling? Are you going to ask non-travellers to truly internalise the cost of airports? It's just an irrelevant point.

> Are you going to ask non-travellers to truly internalise the cost of airports?

I will ask travellers who use airports to understand the cost of an airport and air travel. Yes. Absolutely. Hiding the cost does not help

In my city, less than 50% have a car. So the minority is not the ones not using it. Can't remember the last time I got a lift from someone. I literally can't name someone living here I know that own a car.

Yes, in a city. In a city everybody should be taking public transport. The vast majority of roads are not in cities, though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com