I agree that the formula needs to shift so that more money be spent on public transit and bicycle infrastructure, and so that the revenue from gas tax and parking fees actually covers the cost of maintaining the roads.

I just want it to be clear that I think it's completely impractical for most people to give up their cars. People will need to drive sometimes, even if they use transit and bikes for their daily commutes. I look forward to using transit and/or bike for every trip I make for which those modes are practical, but when the time-cost is too high, I drive. That mindset should fit fine into a world where gas taxes are higher and parking cost revenue is high enough to cover its own costs and possibly some of the transit infrastructure costs as well.

That is what I am getting at.

Automobiles are simply one means of getting people around, they have their benefits but cars also have their costs - and those costs are (in fact) enormous.

The costs of the automobile transportation network starves all other modes.

The focus of transit advocacy would be more effective, I feel, if righting this imbalance became a top priority. The first thing that would happen, if this were effective, would be a drastic reduction in the total amount needed to fund "transportation" - as highways consume massive amounts of money and do not provide nearly as efficient (energy-wise and capital-wise) a system of moving people.

There is a politics of this stuff, and throwing up your hands and saying, "But the people want cars!" is absurd. Prior to the interstate highway system, and federal entitlements for suburban living, not nearly so many did.

Now, that's not to say that we can't accomplish the goals that Umberto is espousing, I just think we can do it with less of a "cars are evil" tone to it.

Example:
Try telling people who live in areas with poor bus service and who live over 30 miles from their work because of housing costs that they should feel bad for using their cars, and see how many votes you get from them for a gas tax increase.

On the other hand, if you appeal to the conservative side's "if you want it, YOU pay for it" mentality, you might actually be able to convince them that, since gas-taxes currently don't nearly support the amount of funding to maintain the roads they drive on, they should consider increasing the tax in the interest of fairness. If they refuse, you are then free to accuse them of accepting handouts and "welfare" from society, because they are using roads and services that they are apparently unwilling to pay for. Accuse a conservative of a vice that they are used to applying to liberals, and you have suddenly got their attention.

That's not being "anti-car", it's appealing to civic fairness and capitalism. It's capitalism in the sense that it supports the ideal that those who work hard and earn enough to pay for and enjoy a luxury should be free to do so.

Cars are tools, not demons. It's not the car that should be attacked, it is the balance of funding that supports its use.

Great, I'll meet you at the corner of Defeatism and I Give Up St. and we'll eat mud together.

So, you've mapped out a way for your ideals to fail. Congrats. Any chance you've got a path towards your ideals coming to fruition? I do, and it partially rests on an anti-car/pro-transit point of view.

There is a politics of transportation, and like any set of political circumstances, it can be manipulated and coerced in one direction or another regardless of what has come before.

This change might happen in 20 years or it might happen in 2010—impossible to say for sure—but when it comes I think it's unlikely that there will be any funds left to complete the subway system or build a solar-powered bus fleet. Those of us who are qualified should be ready to help our neighbors refurbish old ten-speeds and show them how to use a U-lock properly, because recycled bicycles will become the new "people's car".

Our economy is so dependent on cars, consumerism, and profligate waste that transit would have to be waaaay more inefficient to get politicians attention.

They can destroy transit, and what will happen? Oh, but the gas (the gas tax!) God Forbids Us To Mess With the Gas Tax!

Transit advocates should wake up - you need to be more anti-car. Auto entitlements are starving the movement of our society away from fossil fuel over-use.