Jun
29th
Mon
29th
How to Convince a Conservative to Support Public Transportation (William Lind Explains)
Conservative Washington thinktank director William Lind (obviously nostalgic for the America before the auto took over) essentially lays out how to get other conservatives on board with public transit:
Every conservative understands very quickly what happens when you tax one mode and subsidize the other. The taxed mode disappears and the subsidized mode becomes dominant.This kind of echoes what another conservative said recently. (Linds goes so far as to even suggest the gas tax could be higher. *gasp*)
He also says essentially not to market transit as for the poor because those in right-leaning circles aren’t interested in that argument and those in the middle-income brackets aren’t interested in taking that bus — which is a parallel for how NYC’s subway differs from the Washington Metrorail system. In one city, the underground is a slice of the entire demographic; in the other, there is modal segregation by tax bracket.
And I learned a new word: shunpiking.
(Link via BeyondDC.)
