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Cars are liberating. I can escape from a city on a moment’s notice, travel 1000 miles on a whim in a day (and do), beholden to none. 8000 miles last summer thru

• arcticbull 7y ago
  > I can escape from a city on a moment’s notice, travel 1000 miles on a whim in a day (and do), beholden to none. Well, you're beholden to your mechanic, your gas stations, your insurance company, whoever you pay for parking at home (or the indirect cost you paid extra for a garage, driveway, etc) and parking away (or the indirect cost you pay extra for the goods and services you obtain at places that have "free" parking). Oh, and the tax man, as America spends $66 billion dollars per year just maintaining the interstates. > 8000 miles last summer thru remote spectacular regions, as we saw fit, was exhilarating. Sounds nice! > Transit is stifling, taking me nowhere at inconvenience and cost. Well, if we didn't spend all that money on the interstates ($66B/yr), imagine how much rail we could lay down? Even California HSR cost $56M/km (where China's cost $17M), so we could lay down 1200km-4000km of high-speed rail each year. Standard speed rail costs $1.3-26M so we could lay down as much as 50,000km of new rail.