Disclosure: I love driving, even across the country. That said, the freedom to drive is a publicly subsidized freedom, paid for at the expense of the taxpayer

Disclosure: I love driving, even across the country. That said, the freedom to drive is a publicly subsidized freedom, paid for at the expense of the taxpayer and enjoyed unevenly by the population. Society made a choice to build many roads. We could make the decision, too, to make rail and other public transit so ubiquitous, clean and affordable that the need to have a massive, costly and pollution-generating asset just to get to work and get groceries could be a thing of the past for more people.