Comment 27330

By seancb (registered) - website | Posted November 17, 2008 at 09:03:29

By A Smith "Don, if transit is as valuable as you say it is, why does the government have to fund it?"

Is this how you feel about health care as well? Why does the government fund ANYTHING? If the market were such a one-stop-solution, then everything that was truly important would just fund itself via "market forces" and we wouldn't need any public services at all!

How far into oblivion must "the free market" take us before we realize that it is NOT a solution at all?

This isn't about capitalism, or socialism, or anythingism - it's about balancing public spending and recognizing priorities.

To the poster named 'Balance': THe reason roads are brought up here (and elsewhere) is because they represent a huge expenditure, much of which benefits mostly the private automobile.

Yes, goods, services and transit uses roads. But they are a small minority of the traffic. If we were building roads only to pander to them, we would not need the expressway, we would not need 5 lanes on main, we would not need most of the road infrastructure we've built. All of that was built to "keep traffic moving". Traffic being comprised mostly of private automobiles.

Discussion of roads and subsidy of the automobile certainly has a place when it comes to discussing public funding of other modes of transportation.

I vote down for offensiveness and up for humour. I cast no votes based on my level of agreement.

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