Comments

1
Conservatives are so stupid sometimes.

Yglesias nails it; their dislike of mass transit is simply an elitist resentment that anything is expended upon working Americans from their taxes, because they are just too good to sit next to them. Their is nothing the least bit socialistic about it.
2
The newest socialist plot in Georgia is 'cheap' public universities. According to one of our state legislators, "“We’re becoming a socialist society when we say that you shouldn’t raise tuition at all.” He goes on to say tuition is 'embarrassingly cheap.'
http://blogs.ajc.com/gold-dome-live/2010…
3
@2 and Georgia is so well known for it's intellectual giants, meanwhile.

I've never understood why some form of limited transit isn't tried in smaller towns in "the real America". No, they're never going to need a subway but some limited public transit could be a good idea.

But there I go again, spouting off the socialism/terrorism/nazism/homosexual agenda again!
5
I think a lot of conservatives don't actually believe in or behave according to the things they claim to support (e.g., small government, less spending, etc.), they just like to hear their leaders talk about those things. All their revered Republican leaders have drastically increased the size of gov't and increased spending, all while telling their constituency they were going to do the opposite. As long as their leaders keep telling them they live in the best country in the world, they don't care how much they spend or how big they grow.
6
Cars rule bus riders drool (literally!!)
7
Here's the great cognitive dissonance, the thing that's apt to make many conservatives' heads explode. The less available transit is, the more we have to rely on autos. And the more we rely on autos, the greater the demand for oil. We don't import that much oil from the Middle East ourselves, but our thirst for oil drives up the global price and props up Iran and Hezbollah and al Qaeda and most of the Islamist movement that conservatives consider the greatest threat to our nation.

Of course, even this threat is overblown and manipulated. The conservative movement and the Republican Party have long since been hijacked by the major oil companies. The petrol/defense complex has every incentive to scare us about Muslim terrorists, so they can go over there and jostle for control of more oil--in the process inciting even more Muslim terrorists. For them, it's a virtuous cycle.

That said, there is a true conservative case for mass transit, as shown by the new book Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public T…. Of course, like all responsible, intellectual, "no free lunch" conservatism, this kind of thinking has about as much chance of making it into the mainstream of the Republican Party as fiscal responsibility does.
8
Conservatism is a socialist plot. Nothing drives the move to socialism like fanatical right wing idiocy.
9
Oh, here's the correct Amazon link to that book, Moving Minds:
http://www.amazon.com/Moving-Minds-Conse…
10
Increasing mass transit from 3 percent to 5 percent by 2040 is ... EPIC FAIL.

Considering Puget Sound will grow more than 50 percent during that time.

Any planning that doesn't have 5 percent light rail, 5 percent bus, 5 percent bike, 20 percent rideshare, and 5 percent walk is doomed to system gridlock.
11
I live in a Baltimore row house neighborhood and while researching it before buying, I discovered that most of these neighborhoods were built around parks and trolley lines. Most all the major streets had trolley lines running down them, including Falls Road, a couple blocks from my house. You can still see one of the many the old trolley barns that were scattered throughout the city just a few blocks from my house, now converted into commercial space of some sort.

These people really do live in their own world. I remember as a kid, back in the socialistic, communist 1950s, riding the Washington D.C. streetcars before they were removed. One thing I really miss about living in Baltimore verses the D.C. suburbs is the subway here is pretty lame. We have a light rail but it only serves a fraction of the city. If this was communist Baltimore circa 1920 I could get to just about everywhere in the city via the street trolleys.

12
@3
If the town is that small, surely everything is in biking distance, right? Though maybe biking is too hard for them. Though, everything in the town where I live is in biking distance, and the bus transit system works just fine (now if they would just let me bring the bike onto the bus...). Obviously we must be commies though.
13
Everyone ignore Will @ 10. He pulls every figure he quotes out of his ass. If it happens to be accurate, he just made a lucky guess.
14
@12, I moved to a small city and the problem here is that there's a lot that isn't in the city proper. The nearest theater showing frequent/new movies is in another town 20 min. away by car and nestled atop a small mountain. The nearest art supply store is a 45 min. to over an hour drive.

Not to mention the fact that when you live in a location like mine (a cluster of small towns lazily tossed about a small hub), odds are at least half your friends are separated from you by maze of fields, highways, and goats.
15
@14
You've got a point... my 'small town' is only small in that all (or at least most) of it is within a reasonable bike ride... and it's flat. Not that we're urban or anything close to that, I think we're at about 60K as far as population, but we aren't lacking for much (except for dancing for some reason, lots of bars... only 1 where you can dance). I've also lived in small towns (actual ones, like around 10K in the off-season) where yeah you needed a car if you wanted to do anything, and that (plus abject boredom) sucked...
16
@15, it sounds like a much better layout for living. Our population is about 14K and there is no "on"-season. Yes, I feel your pain and am in the same situation. I think there is one place here where people occasionally dance, but it's small and every time I've gone it's so packed that you can't even manage a token wiggle. You just thank the gods for deodorant as you try to ooze your way through to the bar.
17
My college town of 15,000 had two whole bus routes. It was primarily financed by the public university, so it was doubly socialist.

Not only that, but everything in this town actually IS within a 15 minute bike ride. And yet the busses were full frequently.
18
@13 - actually, that comes from some top secret discussions.

Sorry you weren't invited, but we only had so many crunchy sesame nut goodies to go around, and we forgot to bring beer.

(no, I'm actually serious, although I did make up the 20 percent for rideshare - some of the figures are in discussion, and somehow we have to make up the undercount to allow for population growth and the mass desertion of the suburbs that will result - and is already underway)

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