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Anybody Regularly Use Mass Transit?

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Brooklyn Bridge, Aug 3, 2011.

  1. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    How many true libertarians put the kiddies on a school bus?
     
  2. FileNotFound

    FileNotFound Well-Known Member

    I lived in the Dallas area during the infancy of the DART light-rail system. I would occasionally drive 17 miles to a park-and-ride lot and ride DART the remaining 17 miles to downtown. It did give me the advantage of a guaranteed 90-minute one-way trip, rather than the uncertainty of a trip that by car could be 50 minutes or 2 hours.
     
  3. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Traffic is that bad in Dallas!

    God, I hate traffic.
     
  4. Bodie_Broadus

    Bodie_Broadus Active Member

    I can't wait until I can use mass transit to get to work.

    I fucking hate driving.
     
  5. Buck

    Buck Well-Known Member

    I'm not a tea party person, but I don't think tea-party ideals and mass transit are mutually exclusive.
    Improving mass transit has many benefits, but do those benefits outweigh the costs?
    Some might say yes. Some might say no. Some might say yes, but we don't have the money right now. Some might say we do have the money, but we're spending it on other things.
     
  6. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    Most libertarians I know have their kids in private schools. One of my agnostic libertarian friends had his kid in an evangelical church school because there was no freaking way he was ever going to put his kid in a government school.

    Being a libertarian, to me, there are a few basic functions that government must provide. At the local level, it's education for all, a reliable transportation network paid by user fees (gas taxes/tolls/fares), police and fire protection, and maybe water/sewer/electric utilities if the private sector cannot provide them. At the national level, it's the 17 functions noted in the enumerated powers ... which is why I have no problem with working at a public school (and sending my kids to them) and using mass transit or taxpayer-subsidized highways. Most libertarians are minarchists, not anarchists and believe that the government should provide basic functions and other than that, stay out of everyone's way and let them make their own decisions.

    That is where I've long had problems with some of the more militant pro-transit folks. I like transit. I'd use it if it were feasible here (and I do use it when we visit Chicago because my wife doesn't like me driving in the traffic). But I don't like the anti-car, anti-suburb, "we all must live in really dense neighborhoods and come up with ways to create as much traffic congestion as much as possible so people won't drive their cars" attitude that transit freaks have. As part of a balanced, multimodal transportation system that allows the end consumer to decide what they want to use, transit is great. But it should be used and funded in addition to other forms of transportation, not in place of them.
     
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