[speedgibson] Speed Gibson: Like a Knife to a Gunfight

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Posted by Speed Gibson:
Like a Knife to a Gunfight
http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1220814887.shtml


   [1]Craig Westover at the Minnesota Free Market Institute has the
   progressives at [2]Minnesota 2020 talking in circles again. This is a
   world-class fisk you should not miss. He takes Conrad DeFiebre to
   school, but I also learned something.
   I've always been uncomfortable refuting the public transit canard that
   we subsidize roads as well. I now see that the difference isn't about
   scale, that one serves so many more than the other, including the
   other. The key word is subsidy, which takes from non-users and gives
   to the users of whatever is being subsidized, like light rail. There
   are no non-users of roads.
   Indeed, roads are infrastructure - potential - for many uses. It's
   like paper, whose production serves no immediate purpose. When used to
   create The Declaration of Independence, write a check, or publish an
   economics textbook for Mr. DeFiebre, then it has value. Roads
   themselves don't take us or our goods anywhere. That is left to us as
   billions of individual decisions on how best for each of us to go from
   point A to point B at time C for purpose D carrying cargo E and
   passengers F, for cost G, pollution H, and expected benefit I, given
   weather conditions J, safety level K, comfort level L ...
   Roads and public transit are not comparable entities or competing
   strategies. Public transit necessarily uses roads. The level of public
   transit may affect the design of the roads, but since that is very
   small, yes, cars and trucks dominate. Similarly, since most urban
   dwellers prefer the suburban lifestyle, that, too, dominates. Roads
   don't set the transit agenda; they are a lagging indicator.
   Of course, some like DeFiebre think they should be a leading
   indicator. Lay the tracks, and people will want to live near them for
   the convenience despite the high crime, slow plowing, unaccountable
   government and dysfunctional public schools.
   That's the problem with the progressive argument for light rail. As
   common sense and experience undercut and eliminate their major points,
   they must rely more on their minor points. But they don't stand
   scrutiny either, hence the ad hominem shots LeFiebre takes at
   Westover.
   Don't worry, Fishsticks' rejoinder more than settled that score as the
   first order of business.

References

   1. http://www.mnfmi.org/policy-areas/transportation/254-response-to-minnesota-2020-lrt-is-a-private-benefit-not-a-public-good.html
   2. http://www.mn2020.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={659E68B9-447B-4468-913E-95618E4271F1}&DE=