4 ms·
Railroads and streetcars were hugely profitable in the US, until the government subsidized cars by: - giving everyone high-quality roads - setting road tolls
by apsec112 13y ago
Railroads and streetcars were hugely profitable in the US, until the government subsidized cars by:
- giving everyone high-quality roads
- setting road tolls to zero or almost nothing
- making dense housing illegal to build with zoning laws
- requiring businesses to provide free parking
- requiring home builders to provide free parking
- all the crap US does internationally to secure oil supply lines
- not taxing pollution, noise, or other car externalities
- enacting crazy regulations on railroads; for example, American railroads can't buy European trains, they must build their own custom-designed trains at enormous expense
and on and on and on it goes, all at taxpayer (or business owner) expense. An American on a road trip thinks cars are cheap because everyone else is forced to absorb the cost.
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoYour reasons are flawed even if your conclusion is right. People want non dense housing, it isn't required or even promoted by most city governments....quite the opposite in a city like Seattle that is trying to become more dense with incentives. Ditto with free parking. Americans can't buy euro trains because our tracks share freight traffic, so passenger trains have to be built to survive collisions with heavier freight trains. Tl;dr people want cheap driving, it isn't the evil government that forces them to drive.