[cyberax]

I'm all for it! It would suck for transit, though:

1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs.

2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions.

3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear.

It's really amazing that people say things like "car owners should not get subsidized" (by whom?), while talking about transit that is literally infeasible without massive subsidies.

[pessimizer]

> 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs.

This is too misleading to be unintentional. I don't know if you're comparing buses to small/medium EVs 1:1, but even if you aren't, the environmental footprint of replacing all bus services with EVs would be extraordinary.

> 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions.

Transit doesn't force people into housing. It creates new housing options that previously were not tenable. Rivers don't create port congestion, rivers create ports. Not having enough ports, or enough rivers, creates port congestion.

> 3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear.

In proportion to human-miles, or is this a 1:1 comparison?

[cyberax]

> This is too misleading to be unintentional.

It's not misleading. On average, buses in the US carry around 15 people. A car carries around 1.5, so the raw multiplier is just 10.

But wait, there's more!

ALL buses have an incredibly polluting component that is fundamental to their functionality: the driver. You need around 3 drivers to cover the useful service time (from 5am to midnight). And drivers are POLLUTING AS HELL.

> I don't know if you're comparing buses to small/medium EVs 1:1

Yes, I do. Here ya go: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint

> Transit doesn't force people into housing.

It does, via market forces.

> It creates new housing options that previously were not tenable.

No. It _destroys_ affordable housing to pack people into smaller and smaller footprints. Tokyo is a _great_ example of that.

> In proportion to human-miles, or is this a 1:1 comparison?

In proportion to passenger-miles. Road wear scales approximately as the 4-th power of the axle weight, and under-loaded buses still have to haul around their massive bulks even if there's just one passenger inside.

Honestly, it's amazing how bad public transit turns out to be when you actually start looking at its negative sides.

[jrockway]

Let's be honest, it's far from factual that dense housing is problematic in any way. It's just your opinion, and you're mad about it because you stand to lose the most in a world where you have to pay cash for your externalities. The sewer and water system to your house is subsidized. Snow removal from your cul-de-sac is subsidized. Most people couldn't afford the suburbs if someone else wasn't paying for those things (usually future generations).

Many people enjoy living in a dense environment, as evidenced by how much they'll pay to do so. It's objectively better for the Earth, and pretty enjoyable for the people that choose that path.

[cyberax]

> Let's be honest, it's far from factual that dense housing is problematic in any way

Densificatoin causes enshittification spiral. Each successive generation lives in worse conditions. This is an inherent property of densification.

> The sewer and water system to your house is subsidized.

It isn't. I'm paying for it from my taxes (that's why in Seattle my water is more costly than in the middle of a freaking desert).

> Snow removal from your cul-de-sac is subsidized.

It isn't. I'm responsible for keeping it clean, and I was once fined when I failed to do that.

> Many people enjoy living in a dense environment

The vast majority of people want to live in single family houses (90% or so - https://www.redfin.com/news/millennial-homebuyers-prefer-sin... ). They simply can't afford that. And of course, the psychological defense mechanism is: "I never wanted it anyway".

[EatingWithForks]

> Densificatoin causes enshittification spiral. Each successive generation lives in worse conditions. This is an inherent property of densification.

Could you uh, explain this a bit more? This doesn't seem to correspond with the desirability of dense cities atm. All of the most desirable places to live seem to either be dense or easily commutable to somewhere dense.

[cyberax]

Dense cities create a self-reinforcing vicious cycle. It's more efficient for employers to create office-style jobs in the Downtown, because they can more easily attract talent.

In turn, people want to live close enough to their jobs. So this drives up the price of housing in and around the Downtown. In turn, this incentivizes developers to build new buildings as high as economical, and to make units as small as feasible.

Thus the new construction in Downtowns tends to be smaller than the existing one ( https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/seattle-sma... ). This drives up the price of existing larger apartments even more, making them unavailable for younger people. So if you don't work in tech, you'll have to make do with a small apartment.

But no worries, by the next generation your small apartment will look positively spacious!

[mastersummoner]

For the record, there are lots of people who love living in extremely dense urban situations. There are benefits to being exposed to so many different people living different lives, it's one of the things that cuts down on the bias of icky being exposed to an extremely homogenous group with homogenous opinions.

Obviously urban centers can be improved on, and many people living in them wish they had more personal space. But there are advantages too.

[op00to]

> Densificatoin causes enshittification spiral.

This is not a real thing. Please refer to factual, verifiable phenomena and not imaginings.

[mdorazio]

> It's not misleading.

It's very misleading because you're starting from the supposition of EVs rather than the actual mix of personal cars. If you choose EVs for the cars, why not choose ZEV buses that are starting to enter the market as well?

> And drivers are POLLUTING AS HELL.

What? I genuinely don't understand what you're trying to say here.

> No. It _destroys_ affordable housing to pack people into smaller and smaller footprints. Tokyo is a _great_ example of that.

It doesn't destroy affordable housing, though, it shifts it to other areas while increasing density near stations. You need to show why that's a bad thing. Most urban planners and economists would say that increased density is a good thing and that Tokyo is an excellent example of a city done right.

You seem to have a personal bone to pick with high-density cities that's just not shared by most other people.

[cyberax]

> It's very misleading because you're starting from the supposition of EVs rather than the actual mix of personal cars.

If we're talking about planning, then we should look at least 10 years ahead. By that time, most of new vehicles are going to be EVs.

Mind you, the subway construction around here is planned 20 _years_ in advance. All the current proposed projects are going to be finished some time in 2040-s.

> If you choose EVs for the cars, why not choose ZEV buses that are starting to enter the market as well?

ZEV buses still retain the most polluting part of regular buses: the driver.

> What? I genuinely don't understand what you're trying to say here.

One average US citizen produces around 20 tons of CO2 per year. A bus needs 3 of them working full-time. This completely dwarfs the emissions due to fuel use.

> It doesn't destroy affordable housing, though, it shifts it to other areas while increasing density near stations.

Bullshit. New density does NOT create ANY affordable housing. Never has, never will. And dense housing near stations is certainly not cheap.

Heck, here's an article from urbanists that admits that: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/4/26/upzoning-might...

> Most urban planners and economists would say that increased density is a good thing and that Tokyo is an excellent example of a city done right.

Most oil executives say that oil is great and that the large trucks are good!

Tokyo is a great example of young people forced to live in "microapartments" while just a couple of hours away, beautiful old houses sit empty.

> You seem to have a personal bone to pick with high-density cities that's just not shared by most other people.

Most other people haven't heard ANY opposing opinion in their lives. And neither have they researched it themselves. Thus, I routinely hear utterly risible nonsense like "we need more density to allow affordable housing" going unopposed.

[rfrec0n]

> One average US citizen produces around 20 tons of CO2 per year. A bus needs 3 of them working full-time. This completely dwarfs the emissions due to fuel use.

Are you trying to say that these people wouldn't already exist without the bus? So everytime we commission a new bus, 3 fully grown licensed drivers appear in a flash of smoke from the storage compartment of the bus?

[cyberax]

> Are you trying to say that these people wouldn't already exist without the bus?

No. They would be doing other productive things. But right now, they have to spend their productive power on driving buses.

This is simply a huge waste of human potential.

[nimbleplum40]

Do you have citations for those numbers? They don’t match what I’ve heard in the past so I’m curious to learn more.

Also, everything about density in relation to quality of life is pretty subjective. Luckily, we have cities for both! You’re free to live in Houston while those of us that prefer dense urban environments can live in New York and take transit.

[cyberax]

> Do you have citations for those numbers?

Road wear scales as 4-th power of axle weight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

The average loads: https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/mobility/perso...

The CO2 impact by transport mode: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint

Nothing I'm saying is controversial. Heck, even urbanists admit that, they just try to avoid talking about it.

> Also, everything about density in relation to quality of life is pretty subjective. Luckily, we have cities for both!

My problem is with people that try to remake wonderful cities like Seattle into Manhattan-style hellscapes. And this is a result of market forces, that need to be counteracted via political regulation.

I'd love to live in Houston, but I just can't tolerate its weather. I tried.

[nimbleplum40]

Thanks for the links, I’ll read through them when I get a chance.

And feel free to argue about keeping Seattle the way it is. I have no interest in changing Seattle. Just leave my Manhattan out of it :)

[rafram]

If the extraordinarily boring, centerless, sprawling city that is Seattle is your idea of wonderful, you can have it! Young people are moving to NYC over Seattle because that’s the sort of city environment they want to live in.

[acdha]

> On average, buses in the US carry around 15 people. A car carries around 1.5, so the raw multiplier is just 10.

Buses in the US are largely avoided due to the last century spent prioritizing suburban car commuting over everything else. What you should be looking at are the averages on bus routes where the buses run regularly and aren’t blocked by solo drivers. That means that the floor for a bus is 10:1 but it can easily rise to 50-70:1 with cheap policy changes (e.g. put a $500 camera on the bus to ticket drivers and suddenly headways improve by 50%). In contrast, the large EVs people are actually buying will never become more efficient over the lifetime of the vehicle.

[cyberax]

> What you should be looking at are the averages on bus routes where the buses run regularly and aren’t blocked by solo drivers

Le sigh. If you want more bus passengers in each bus, you either need to run buses with longer intervals (making them completely useless) or you need to pack people together. Packing people together densely enough to make buses work inevitably requires living in small apartments.

The US in the last century decided to focus on comfortable human-oriented housing, and not on building Soviet-style human anthills.

> In contrast, the large EVs people are actually buying will never become more efficient over the lifetime of the vehicle.

Large EVs have lifecycle CO2 footprint of about 70g/km. Buses are ~100g/km, and EV buses (trolleys) are 60 g/km.

Moving to mid-sized EVs, such as Tesla Model 3/Y, cuts that to about 35 g/km (it depends on the US state). This is definitely something that we should encourage. The US addiction to huge barn-sized SUVs is unhealthy.

[kalleboo]

> Le sigh. If you want more bus passengers in each bus, you either need to run buses with longer intervals (making them completely useless) or you need to pack people together. Packing people together densely enough to make buses work inevitably requires living in small apartments

This is not my experience. Living in a village of around 2000 pop in Sweden with pretty much only single-family houses with gardens. The whole village was within 15 minutes walk or bike within one of 3 bus stops to a bus service that went into the city every 20 minutes during the day, with double-length buses during peak hours. The buses had a very healthy occupancy rate.

You just have to make sure to design towns around the transit instead of around cars. US suburbs are really hard to retrofit transit into, with designs that actively subvert it

[zip1234]

> It's really amazing that people say things like "car owners should not get subsidized" (by whom?), while talking about transit that is literally infeasible without massive subsidies.

If road usage fees cover less than half the cost of roads then clearly someone is subsidizing roads.

[alphanullmeric]

Sounds like roads should be paid for only by their users, and proportionally to their use. Then it would be irrelevant whether it’s a sedan or bus since everyone pays their fair share. But of course, such solutions are not acceptable to those that do not intend to pay their fair share.

[klipt]

Transit is completely feasible without subsidies if the transit company owns the land near the stations, which generate generous rents.

Of course if the land is owned by other people, the increase in value provided by transit should be recaptured through a Land Value Tax which is then used to fund the transit.

[cyberax]

> Transit is completely feasible without subsidies if the transit company owns the land near the stations, which generate generous rents.

So basically, you want to subsidize transit by making the transport authority be a slumlord. Got it.

There are no unsubsidized urban transit services in the US. Even operating costs are not paid from fares. And new transit construction is COMPLETELY subsidized.

I live in Seattle and I will have paid around $20k in car tab fees alone by the time the choo-choo subway train expansion here is done. It won't go anywhere near me and it will make my life worse, by inducing even more traffic.

[nimbleplum40]

There are also no unsubsidized fire departments, police departments, public schools, public parks, etc. Analyzing only the first order costs/benefits is really not a good way of analyzing any infrastructure project.

[cyberax]

> There are also no unsubsidized fire departments, police departments, public schools, public parks, etc.

My fire department, police, and parks are certainly not subsidized. I pay for them from my taxes.

[nimbleplum40]

That’s what a subsidy is my dude. The money obviously has to come from _somewhere_.

Are you saying that if taxes pay for transit then transit isn’t subsidized?

[cyberax]

> That’s what a subsidy is my dude.

Dictionary definition: "a sum of money granted by the government or a public body to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive."

What I have is NOT a subsidy. I use the resources, and I pay for them.

I don't have people from New York paying for my fire department in Seattle.

> Are you saying that if taxes pay for transit then transit isn’t subsidized?

I use fire protection, and I pay for it. My neighbors receive equal fire protection. There are no subsidies, we all pay our equal share (based on the house value).

However, I won't benefit from transit that is being built (heck, it will make my life WORSE). Yet I have to pay for it, thus I subsidize it.

Clear?

[predictabl3]

Wow, just wow.

[klipt]

> So basically, you want to subsidize transit by making the transport authority be a slumlord

Is everyone who owns land a "slumlord" now?

It's well studied that transit generates huge economic value, but that value mostly manifests as increased land value near the stations.

So why shouldn't that value - created by transit - be credited to the transit that created it?

[trinovantes]

> So basically, you want to subsidize transit by making the transport authority be a slumlord. Got it.

Yes, it's better to have transit company use that money to fund operations than some numbered corp generating profit for wall street investors

Tokyo transit is highly profitable and don't require tax-payer subsidies because they own the land around stations

[kelnos]

Car owners are already hugely subsidized. Toll roads cover only a tiny fraction of road maintenance. The rest is paid by taxpayers, even those who do not drive.

[ApolloFortyNine]

Could easily make the same argument when some city spends 3 billion to build a 4 mile subway extension.

The fare recovery rate is absolutely terrible in the US. Expecting 100% isn't exactly necessary, but NYC is at 20%.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio

[rafram]

The “farebox recovery ratio” of a road is usually zero. Roads are funded through taxes (with the exception of some toll highways). Why can’t transit be the same?

[ApolloFortyNine]

There's not only the gas tax to think about, but also that every road also enables the truck that inevitably delivers goods to your grocery store to get there.

The subway system is only possibly used by those who live near a station and are traveling near another station, and tourists.

[cyberax]

> Car owners are already hugely subsidized

Around 80% of all commutes in the US are by car. You can't subsidize 80% of the population.

Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly.

[seadan83]

Only a fraction of the US population work and thus commute. Of those that commute, that 80% do not have equal road usage. Even within that community, there is a subsidy going on. So, yes, there is a ton of subsidization going on (and this is not always bad)

> Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly.

I think this is the point, notably because those 'indirect' payments are also payed by non-drivers as well. Hence, the subsidy.

Even within drivers, some are subsidized by others (let alone non-drivers). To illustrate, first: most road wear is from weather [1]. This means any two lengths of similar roads will have about the same upkeep cost regardless of usage (not quite true, but if taking 30 people vs 300, it's about true).

Let's consider 10 miles of road to suburb A with 30 drives, and 10 miles of different but similar road to suburb B with 300 drivers. The city will pay for upkeep of 20 miles, collecting various taxes from 330 people, and those taxes are then spent evenly across those 20 miles. To do this proportionately, without any subsidies, the group of 300 could arguably have those various taxes reduced for them only by 90% and increase the taxes of the 30 people 9 fold. That would be an equitable upkeep system.

The fact the road upkeep payment per person is not equitable, means there is a subsidy (and this situation is not always a bad thing)

[1] https://lacrossetribune.com/what-causes-roads-to-wear-out/ar...

[cyberax]

> Only a fraction of the US population work and thus commute.

The fraction that doesn't work is either too young to pay taxes anyway, or they had used road commutes before they retired. Everybody else are within the margin of error.

Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway. I had a paper looking at exact numbers bookmarked, but I lost it somehow.

So in practice, car owners don't get substantially subsidized by transit users. While the inverse is overwhelmingly true, transit users are massively subsidized by car users.

> This means any two lengths of similar roads will have about the same upkeep cost

This is simply incorrect. Vehicles cause stresses in the concrete, allowing fractures to accumulate, and they also directly wear down the pavement. The weather then amplifies the damage, especially in areas that experience frequent zero crossings.

If you want to learn more, feel free to check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law and click the links about pavement engineering.

[Jcowell]

Couple do things since I actually live in New York

> The fraction that doesn't work is either too young to pay taxes anyway, or they had used road commutes before they retired. Everybody else are within the margin of error.

If you buy anything anywhere in NY you’re paying taxes.

> Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway. I had a paper looking at exact numbers bookmarked, but I lost it somehow

In NY this wouldn’t suffice for the income level (6 figures bracket) we’re talking about. it’s infeasible for a majority chunk of residents living in Chelsea , Hell’s kitchen, Upper East Side , FIDI, etc, to own a car since the cost to have it , pay the insurance, and store it working make economical sense. Especially so since if you’re affording to live there you’re job is also on the island.

It a bell curve where the beginning are the low income residents living in Harlem and the outer boroughs that necessitate having a car (with the space to accommodate for it and wouldn’t be hit by congestion pricing), the middle curve of 6 figures+ making residents that would be in the best position to not have a car, and then the rich or dual income families that has the ability to pay this congestion tax anyway.

[joshuaissac]

> Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway.

To the contrary, those in the highest income brackets are the ones most likely to walk to work,[1] and also the most likely to be paying more in taxes.

1. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0739456X18796652 page 9, figure 'Work Trip Walking by Income and Density'

[PM_me_your_math]

70% of the tax burden is carried by people making $120k/year or more. The argument that the poor pay more taxes than the rich is mental gymnastics with back injury. Similar to how some believe the rich get richer taking something the poor didn't have in the first place. It is all just class warfare used to divide and conquer.

[cyberax]

> To the contrary, those in the highest income brackets are the ones most likely to walk to work

Stop misrepresenting the data. High incomes are still most likely to DRIVE to work.

They are _more_ _likely_ to walk to work than lower incomes, but:

1. The difference is slight.

2. The absolute numbers are around 5% of trips.

[seadan83]

> Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway.

Doesn't this directly contradict your point that car commuters are subsidized?

[seadan83]

One more thing that occurred to me, most US retirees still own cars, and still pay car tabs! That is kinda the issue, payment for driving is spread across US society rather than being the burden of those that use cars.

A strict counter-example, myself, I pay a _lot_ in property taxes and put almost zero wear on the roads. When I did last own a car, I was averaging about 500 miles per year.

This is really the point. Drivers must be subsidized because the cost of driving does not go up linearly with miles driven. For example, if someone just spent 24 hours driving rather than say 4 hours, their payments for driving upkeep does not go up 6 fold (they do not pay 6 times on car tabs, 6 times on car tax, 6 times on property taxes, etc.. they only pay gas tax as extra).

Now, this is kinda a tired argument, because it then goes to, "well, even if you don't use the roads, you still benefit." I sure do. Though, the issue is that the way things are incentivized, by spreading costs across everyone, we are put in a situation where otherwise unsustainably low density areas become incentivized.

Which goes exactly to the point of charging people to drive through downtown. Seemingly it is a very rare example of a disincentives to car culture. The argument that mass transit is subsidized seems a bit obvious (and is it is true that mass transit is very subsidized), though.. given all the incentives to drive, not having to pay the full cost per mile traveled as those costs are spread out - why the hell not drive everywhere? Why at all would anyone take mass transit when the cost to drive 5000 miles compared to 500 miles are so similar.

Let's look at the math: Driving 5000 miles (my last car got about 400 miles to the tank, at about 13 gallons), requires about 130 gallons of gas. At about $0.50 per gallon for tax, that is a payment of just $65 dollars in tax to go 10 times further. Car tabs alone are over $100 in WA state.

This hopefully illustrates really easily that users of the road are not paying proportionate to their usage of the road. This is a mixed bag, as I would very much not want farmers to have to pay the full cost of the roads connecting them to the overall transit grid. Yet, because how costs are shared, driving in a lot of ways is "too cheap" and the overwhelming incentive is to (unsustainably) drive everywhere. Further, because everything in the US is built with driving in mind, it makes it so everyone has to drive, whether they would want to or not. This is compounded in city policy with zoning laws that force there to be parking, force residential to be segregated from commercial that would otherwise for walkable neighborhoods. All that is to say, it's the second order effects of how we pay for driving that creates quite a number of sustainability issues and really diminish the quality of life we could have (quieter, less polluted, less time spent in commute, less time spent in traffic jams).

[seadan83]

> The fraction that doesn't work is either too young to pay taxes anyway, or they had used road commutes before they retired. Everybody else are within the margin of error.

The argument that either everyone was already a tax-paying driver or will soon be one is hard to believe. Without data, I won't take that at face value.

Even that 'margin of error,' I think needs some examination. Any 'margin of error' means there is a subsidy. Notably, drivers are simply not paying the full cost of their road usage. If so, it would not matter at all whether there were retirees or not, the costs would be payed for entirely by drivers. That is not the case, ergo, drivers are subsidized. Now, let's argue about what that percentage is.

> So in practice, car owners don't get substantially subsidized by transit users.

This is moving the goal posts as far as I can tell. The statement is that car owners get subsidized by everyone else, not just transit users.

> So in practice, car owners don't get substantially subsidized by transit users. While the inverse is overwhelmingly true, transit users are massively subsidized by car users.

>> This is simply incorrect.

Per the reference: https://lacrossetribune.com/what-causes-roads-to-wear-out/ar...

“Cars usually do not have that much loading impact on the road,” said John Mueller, a DOT Highway Mainten-ance Engineer. “The main source is the water that sits in the joint that freezes and thaws.”

"It is once concrete deteriorates that traffic loads pack a punch. Large trucks can accelerate the process."

Thus, you have it the other way round. Weather deteriorates roads, then it is traffic that amplifies that damage.

We can still make the example more extreme, let's say that group of 300 are 1 mile away, and half take light rail. At this point, it's very clear that the 30 people living 10 miles away (perhaps even 50 miles!), are being subsidized considerably.

Regarding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law, I think I understand what you are trying to get at. In my example, I was trying to keep things about equal and was assuming that both groups of people were driving similar cars. I would suspect in most realistic examples that are similar, that group that is 10 or 50 miles away are probably driving larger vehicles (and maybe farm equipment & logging trucks are more frequently on those roads).

Cutting to the chase though, we don't have to argue to what extent drivers are subsidized, there are numbers for that:

> A report published in the April of 2022 issue of Ecological Economics teased out the lifetime cost of driving a small car to be roughly $641,000, with society subsidizing about 41% of that cost. [1][2]

[1] https://stacker.com/society/how-driving-subsidized-america#:.... [2] https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/slideshow/How-driving-is-s...

Then there are more subsidies at play to keep oil cheap and gasoline artifically low in price, as well as the cost of purchasing cars, and the cost of parking is amortized to property owners [3]

[3] https://medium.com/radical-urbanist/cars-gets-billions-in-hi...

[acdha]

You certainly can subsidize large populations because taxes cover all income but are being used specifically to encourage just one more of transportation. If driving wasn’t so heavily subsidized, people would use other options because the true cost is much higher than what people see directly – it’s not just roads but also things like below market rate storage, zoning rules requiring owners to build more car storage than they necessarily want, and especially not requiring drivers to carry insurance sufficient to cover the full cost of their mistakes and decisions.

[cyberax]

> You certainly can subsidize large populations because taxes cover all income but are being used specifically to encourage just one more of transportation.

It can be argued that rich people subsidize poor, since they pay more taxes. However, that's pretty much it.

Transit users in the US overwhelmingly do NOT subsidize car users. While the inverse is true, transit users on average don't pay even half of the true cost of transit. The rest is born by everyone.

> If driving wasn’t so heavily subsidized

BY WHOM?

[acdha]

> > If driving wasn’t so heavily subsidized

> BY WHOM?

You’ve had multiple people tell you so at this point I would highly suggest doing some homework before getting angry. Here’s a summary:

* Roads are paid for around 50% by general tax revenue. Thar keeps the upfront price of driving low compared to alternatives and decades of studies have found this creates a massive number of extra car trips. If we used more efficient transportation modes we would also not need the massive highway projects sold to taxpayers as rush hour alleviation but delivering only more traffic thanks to the principle of induced demand. * Most cities subsidize street parking below the cost of providing it, much less market rates. This encourages driving but takes a significant amount of public space and generates a huge amount of congestion and pollution (emissions and noise) as people circle looking for subsidized spots rather than paying for garage parking. * Most cities require minimum amounts of parking to be provided for solo drivers even if the owner of a property doesn’t want it (we require bars to encourage drunk driving!). Everyone pays more for that even if they don’t drive because they’re paying for more construction and maintenance and many businesses have less revenue generating space because, for example, instead of a restaurant having tables for 40 more patrons they have parking for 8 vehicles. Since housing is required to have at least 1-2 spaces per home, a given piece of land will house fewer people and many large projects require expensive garages, which you’re paying for whether or not you want it and traffic is also a common argument against the density which would lower costs. Making housing more expensive causes more people to need longer commutes and the consequent lower quality of life. * Car owners are not charged for the negative health impacts of driving - a leading cause of asthma and all kinds of cardiovascular conditions – or to compensate city residents for the quality of life reductions their commuting causes. * Drivers are not charged for the expensive city infrastructure created to protect pedestrians and bicyclists from unsafe driving. All of that concrete, flexposts and barriers, various pedestrian light systems, etc. are car infrastructure. * Drivers are not required to have sufficient insurance to cover the full cost to anyone they hit. This intersects really badly with our horrific healthcare system and is a common cause of people falling out of the workforce or into substance abuse over chronic pain following collisions. * Last but not least, driving is the most expensive way to commute in common use when it comes to greenhouse gases. EVs promise a 50% reduction but that’s still far higher than any mainstream alternative. There are many other factors in climate change but driving is something like 30% so it’s going to have to go down a lot to reduce the trillions in economic damage we’re facing.

[ryukafalz]

> Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly.

Taxes that are also paid by those who don't drive, yes?

[cyberax]

> Taxes that are also paid by those who don't drive, yes?

If you want to be strictly true then yes.

In practice, if you are using transit in the US, then you are likely not paying much in taxes. There are exceptions (NYC, SF, DC), of course.

[matchbok]

If your whole argument against transit requires us to ignore the three biggest transit systems is order for your argument to work…. You don’t have a good argument champ.

[rafram]

> There are exceptions (NYC, SF, DC), of course.

The metro areas of those three cities contain almost 10 percent of the US population.

(Edit: And the vast majority of transit users!)

[seadan83]

> 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs.

If mass transit _and_ also EVs are incentivized over petrol cars, that is not bad [1]

> 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions.

My anecdotal experience is that areas around light rail stations gentrify and luxery style condominiums pop up like mushrooms around them. A 10 minute and consistent train ride into dowtown is compelling when that same journey can take 30 to 120 minutes by car (this is Seattle, it can take 20 minutes to just cross the U bridge and travel a quarter mile).

> 3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear.

If a bus is actually taking 50 cars off the road, and is traveling on lanes that are built for the excessive wear; then it is still a net benefit.

> "car owners should not get subsidized (by whom?)"

Point 3 discusses the wear and tear of roads. Drivers do not pay fully for the wear and tear of roads (and road construction, etc). Road funds come from many funds and car traffic does not generate enough in fuel and car-tab taxes to fully pay for roads. Hence, it is subsidized by other people that pay those taxes.

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The comparison perhaps should not be also strictly of just buses against EVs.