Frog to David: give me a break
National’s blogger-extraordinaire David Farrar has given the Greens a good flogging for our Auckland transport plan. This morning, he wrote:
Ironically the biggest enemy of public transport is the Greens … because they persist with the madness that public transport is an *alternative* to roads. They are not. They are complementary. By pushing it as an alternative to roads, they almost doom its chance of sucess.
Let’s use a local example. The Government is looking at five packages for Wellington. One of those packages is a $410 million investment into primarily public transport. Now guess how many less cars a day it is predicted this investment would lead to? 100!!! Yes that is right $410 million will only result in 100 less cars a day on Wellington roads. It would be cheaper to buy 100 motorists a helicopter each and tell them to fly to work.
Now this is not a case to never invest in public transport, but one has to be very clear about your thinking. If you think spending on public transport will make even a small small dent in traffic congestion, then you are wrong. It will make public transport more pleasant and useful for those who use it, but it will not lead to any significant reduction in traffic congestion.
Umm, David’s arguments are so bad, I’m not sure where to start.
First of all, the Greens don’t propose public transport as an alternative to roads. We of course see roads, rail, and buses as complementary parts of a city’s transport network. We’re not proposing to develop the public transport system in Auckland so that we can do away with roads, or even so that we can have fewer roads than we have now. We’re simply saying that our first funding priority in Auckland should be devloping its public transport system, rather than building new roads. Incidentally, we’re proposing to develop the public transport system in part so that only those who need to use roads do so. This will free existing roads up considerably, and end the gridlock that frustrates Aucklanders so much.
Second of all, your claim that “if you think spending on public transport will make even a small small dent in traffic congestion, then you are wrong” belies an astonishing ignorance of the international experience of transport systems. I implore you to show me a single city in the world with a million people or more that has successfully combated congestion in the past few decades by building a more and more comprehensive road network while allowing public transport systems to wilt. Meanwhile, I will show you cities around the world which have successfully developed state-of-the-art public transport systems in order to combat congestion and make it much easier to get around. Here are four:
If you need more, get back to me. I have plenty more where that came from.
Generally, if you look at the cities around the world, the ones that are the easiest to get around are not the ones that have spent all their big money on building more and more elaborate roading networks. They’re the ones with brilliant public transport systems. And this is for the basic reason that public transport systems are a far more efficient way to move people around cities than cars are.
Third of all, it’s just commonsense that a state-of-the-art public transport system will encourage more and more people off the roads and into trains and buses and ferries. If your public transport system is clean, convenient, reliable, and cheap to use, of course more people will use it than if it is dirty, unreliable, erratic, and expensive. If I can get to the Sky Tower from Auckland Airport at rush hour in a high-speed train in 15 minutes for $2, compared to over an hour and $50 in a cab, then of course I’ll choose it. If the Wellington region’s public transport systems were made free overnight, of course more people would use it instead of driving to and from work.
Fourth of all, the Wellington example you cite gleefully is a complete red herring. The model used by the Wellington Regional Council had, as a built-in assumption, the idea that it would be almost impossible to get people out of cars and on to trains. If your model makes such patently ridiculous assumptions, then of course it will spit out such ridiculous results as the ones you cite.
If National is serious about analysing Auckland’s transport woes, I would hope that their analysis is more rigorous than what has been spouted so far by its resident blogger.
August 9th, 2005 at 6:07 pm
David’s view really makes me want to ask him whether he has ever lived in a metropolis that has a good public transport system.
Does he live in Wellington? Cos in the late 80s there was a comprehensive survey of all public transport users in Wellington that revealed that Wellington was one of the few cities in the West where people who other forms of transport actually used public transport instead. There seems to be an assumption by many car drivers that using cars is everybody’s default choice. Not true.
Secondly, if David has lived in a large city such as London etc, did he drive a car there? Or take public transport? If he only lived in London, then he should be careful not to take the example of 150 year old lines as representative of modern systems.
Thirdly, I have live in Tokyo, I never needed a car at all. Even to get to another city, I could take a train.
Singapore is a great example of how a comprehensive public transportcan improve quality of life. Taipei in Taiwan is another example.
August 9th, 2005 at 8:40 pm
I used to work in London, and lived a few miles outside, so for several years I had first hand experience of London’s travel arrangements.
Much of London’s public transport infrastructure is old, but it still works, and works pretty well. There are new examples, such as the Docklands Light Railway, which serves the east of the City, built primarily as a showcase for regeneration of the East End, but which works well, it is an automated passenger transit system. The Victoria line has driven itself since it was built in the sixties.
The bus system is good. Lots of buses, lots of service. At one time, a few years ago, the bus system was very cheap and thus very popular, until political shenanigans put paid to this.
One of the big theories is that motorists have a level of congestion with which they are willing to put up. If it gets worse than their limit, they dont drive. Thus congestion is a self-limiting thing, the problem of congestion management is to persuade motorists to use public transport when they would rather not.
The final tool that managed this in London was the Congestion Charge, which has persuaded many motorists that public transport is better than car. Of course, rising fuel prices will also be a disincentive to use the car over the medium term.
If Auckland (or Wellington, or Christchurch) had a public transport system a fraction as good as London’s, then yes, motorists would choose public transport over car.
August 9th, 2005 at 10:10 pm
David
I know you come visiting to read the news now and again, so I have to tell you that you’re quite a fair distance from truth here. Sometimes you have a decent point or two, but not this time.
First issue is the question of how much is “a lot of money”. Mass transit is invariably a big investment and while 410 million sounds a lot, it doesn’t stack up favorably when compared to the costs of building something like the London underground, or the subways of NYC. Check the cost of even the light rail extension from LA to Pasadena was US $859 Million ($1.25 Billion NZ not counting inflation) and that was just 22 km of pre-existing roadbed. The next question is how many cars it will displace over then next 100 years of operation… or more. How many new riders will show up when US petrol starts flirting with $6 a gallon or more, or simply isn’t available. The battle to get it built was epic, I was there, I know.
You must be familiar with the underground in London and the subway in NYC, but are you aware that there is a vastly better one in Moscow? Improving mass transit in Moscow would be hard simply because it is already good. People in Russia take the train. You can get anywhere in Moscow in about 15 minutes for about 50 cents. You never wait more than a couple of minutes to connect to the next train. The stations are easily mistaken for art museums. The capital investment has to be in the trillions… but would Moscow or NYC work at all without their mass transit?
So don’t try to make $410 million sound like a great whacking gob of money that’s not buying anything… because the second neglected issue of yours is the neglected state of the rail lines in New Zealand. How much of the money is going to wind up repairing the damage that 2 decades of bitter neglect have inflicted on the local rail system?
No David, you got a wrong answer here. Taxes and waste are the issues National has a chance at, and even there you’re wrong on the taxes end. Auckland NEEDS rail, light rail and electrified mass transit facilities. It needs more roads the same way LA needs them, the same way an addict needs heroin.
Final point:
The reason mass transit is funded abysmally in capitalist societies is that rich people don’t use mass transit.
respectfully
BJ
August 9th, 2005 at 11:16 pm
BJ, using Moscow as an example of great public transport while then saying that “…mass transit is funded abysmally in capitalist societies is that rich people don’t use mass transit.” misses out a vital piece of info for the readers. Stalin’s Soviet Union did not care how many people were worked to death to build things like the underground.
August 10th, 2005 at 12:15 am
It is true that as far as population density is concerned, we are miles behind most other cities/countries, but a better public transport system will be absolutely fantastic. The better the services become, the more people will use them.
However what seems to be occurring at the moment is even a decline. For services between cities at any rate. Rail services have been cut and so have buses. I discovered this when I was going to book a ticket over to hear Jeanette speak tomorrow night in Tauranga. The bus used to go 7 days back & forth between Tauranga & Hamilton, & at convenient times. Now it only goes over on a Friday night and back early on Sunday morning. :p OK I’m done ranting about that.
But back to public transport within cities, Perth is a great example, I was there over summer & it is a fantastic service. Often there were so many people packing into the trains even at odd times of the day that most people had to stand.
BJs final point is so right, and can also be used to address public health and public education just to diverge again.
David Farrar perhaps earns enough that no matter how expensive petrol gets he can afford to run a car. For most people however, rising petrol prices will soon mean that an effective public transport system will be very much the more attractive option.
Depending on the length of the journey commuters can even take a laptop & get started on their work 30 minutes earlier, so getting a jump on their daily workload.
August 10th, 2005 at 6:33 am
Lucyna
Three issues. First, Stalin killed people outright, he’d never bother doing something like the metro for to accomplish the task… and it is hard to pick w more monstrous figure in history. You somehow try to link him to the metro so you can deny the accomplishment its due. Wrong answer.
Second, Stalin was not the sole author of the metro, it pre-dates him by a few decades.
http://meta.metro.ru/moskva/moscow-e.html
…the value of mass transit was recognized by Russians BEFORE the revolution.
Third is that the mass transit we have built in ANY country of capitalist culture pales before the transit built in Ukraine and Russia. Partly because they had few decent roads and few decent cars, but mostly because the cultural emphasis was NOT to serve the privileged few… at least not in the beginning.
respectfully
BJ
August 10th, 2005 at 9:32 am
BJ, you don’t know what you are talking about with regards to Stalin and co. They regarded human life as expendable. They regarded architecture as art that would last centuries. They did not care if people died while building their projects.
Although plans proposing the construction of an underground train system in Moscow were drawn up in 1902 and again in 1912, the outbreak of WWI, and later the revolution, delayed the start of the project for many years. The first line, the Sokolnicheskaya Line, was tunneled and built mainly by forced laborers and was finally and ceremoniously inaugurated on 15th May 1935, boasting just 13 stations. The Moscow Metro
Of course what is built in capatalist countries overall much better that what was built in the Soviet Union. If they’d built any more, they might have run out of people.
August 10th, 2005 at 9:58 am
Most especially under Stalin, the Gulag was turned into a vast slave system to provide the human material for “building socialism� with cheap and seemingly limitless supplies of labour.
In other words, during the 25 years of Stalin’s leadership of the Soviet state, the Gulag was made into an essential element in the system of socialist central planning for the construction of entire new industrial cities in empty and inhospitable regions of northern Russia, Siberia, and Central Asia and supplied manpower to extract raw materials and precious metals from regions of the country that were virtually unfit for human habitation.
But the camps continued beyond Stalin’s rule, right up to Gorbachev. They did not reach the depths of inhumanity under Stalin, but for many people in the camps, that point was rather moot.
From Lenin’s time to the end of the Soviet system under Gorbachev, literally millions of victims of the regime entered and passed through the Gulag system, with many of them never living through the experience.
But among those who did survive the ordeal, hundreds wrote about the nightmare of it all. And from the 1920s to the 1990s many of these accounts were published in the West.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s three-volume Gulag Archipelago and Eugeniya Ginsburg’s Journey into the Whirlwind and Within the Whirlwind are among the better-known accounts that have been available to the Western reader.
And David Dallen and Boris Nicolaevsky’s Forced Labor in Soviet Russia and Nikolai Tolstoi’s, Stalin’s Secret War have been among the carefully documented secondary summaries of the nature of the system.
Anne Applebaum’s Gulag: A History is the first volume that attempts to give a detailed and fairly comprehensive narrative of the origin, purpose, workings, and reality of the system based both on the memoirs of those who lived through and survived the camps and on the now-available archive documents in Russia.
From Freedom Daily
There is no doubt many of the raw materials required for their construction came at the cost of millions of lives. Canals and roads were built with little regard for the cost in people, and indeed, what are a few lives when the work will live on for years?
Any good Russian tourist brochure will wax lyrical about the triumphs of Russian architecture and construction. It is our duty to remember the blood on the tracks that grease the tracks.
August 10th, 2005 at 11:22 am
Lucyna - Whatever your problem with me you are distinctly confusing and mixing the issues. I do NOT recall saying that Stalin was a nice guy… so when you discuss what I know and don’t know you should also consider what I said and didn’t SAY, instead of what you wish I had said in order to refute the truth.
Whether Lenin and Stalin used forced labor, free labor or Martians to build the Metro is irrelevant to the fact that they DID build it… and you may worship the altar of capitalism but I’ve ridden the rails in Moscow and the rails under NYC. Capitalism doesn’t ALWAYS work best, not for all things, and not in this case. The idea of a subway was broached before Lenin and Trotsky took the country away from the Tzar. It was finally built with slave labor under Stalin. It wasn’t all that unusual for Stalin to use forced labor. The point is that he built MASS TRANSIT instead of something else.
The question you have to ask yourself is why this decision was made?
Was someone still thinking along “communist/socialist” lines or were they actually “showing-off” or was it a little of both? The quality of the underground in Kiev and in other cities I’ve visited leads me to the conclusion that the metro was not an accident… ALL of those cities have better mass transit than ANY of the cities in the capitalist countries where I spent the bulk of my life. The museum-like atmosphere there is a bit over the top, but THOSE additions weren’t likely the cause of any deaths, and plenty of people died building the NYC lines. Just because the forcing function is economic rather than physical, it is no less real.
Rich people don’t take mass transit. They don’t use public health services. They don’t use public schools. In a strictly capitalist society they don’t PAY for any of those things either… and they make damned sure that they don’t pay taxes to fund them. Which rather effectively guts the promise of equal opportunity. I didn’t come here by accident, and I am NO fan of communism, nor of Stalin, but I have to look at what is true, not what I wish were true.
Moscow - 50 cents and 15 minutes anywhere in the city, never waiting for a train for more than 5. NYC $2.00 and about an hour to get anywhere with random waits of up to a half hour. You do however, get to enjoy some remarkable odours. Scraping your shoes before entering your apartment is highly recommended.
August 10th, 2005 at 11:39 am
oh for gods sake it is irrelevant to link the injustice and brutality of the soviet regime with the effectiveness of their metro system, you two are really showing your ideological blinkers here.
Many of the roads and railway lines in Australia were built using forced prisoner labour and many of those workers died constructing them too. Many free and paid people die in construction sites in capitalist countries, especially those countries without adequate safety controls, for example in 1996 in the UK the tories introduced new business friendly workplace safety legislation and surprise surprise workplace deaths rose by 20% in a year.
The Greens are neither left nor right, (but out in front), and recognise the injustice of both communism and capitalism and hope for a common sense effective third way.
August 10th, 2005 at 11:57 am
Stuey, BJ said:
You must be familiar with the underground in London and the subway in NYC, but are you aware that there is a vastly better one in Moscow? Improving mass transit in Moscow would be hard simply because it is already good. People in Russia take the train. You can get anywhere in Moscow in about 15 minutes for about 50 cents. You never wait more than a couple of minutes to connect to the next train. The stations are easily mistaken for art museums. The capital investment has to be in the trillions… but would Moscow or NYC work at all without their mass transit?
…
The reason mass transit is funded abysmally in capitalist societies is that rich people don’t use mass transit.
The link is to howthe vastly better one in Moscow got to be vastly better in a thread about state of the art transport systems. The Moscow Metro got that way because of the resources (the labour of people who’s lives were quite often forfeit). Ie: The Cost. Try to think outside the square, Stuey.
August 10th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
You use cities that aren’t surrounded by two harbours, have an isthmus and genrally have endless land available to plan the infrastructure and Singapore is a big round island. Not really comparing apples with apples.
August 10th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
Hmm. It’s alright to talk about US imperialism, but don’t mention Russia. Ideological blinkers? Yes, it’s all over now isn’t it. We are safe. This can never happen again. And the next type of Communism or National Socialism will respect human rights. Perish the thought we should attempt to fight it.
I’m sure you will be crowing about Mugabe’s nice new suburbs once they are built. Let’s not consider what was cleared to make way for the shiny new homes. The point is the homes are new and shiny.
I find it a little hard to forget what the likes of Russia are STILL UP TO, and such is the focus on the new “Gulag” that people cannot remember (or never learned) what the real Gulags were all about.
However, I do admit we were wandering off topic. Back to NZ:
The problem with mass transit in NZ is the low populations that are relatively spread out. To get frequent and reliable services you need people to fill the trains and buses consistently throughout the day.
That might be possible in Auckland, but even then, it is a very spread out city for its size.
Where I live I would need to take two buses to get to my kids school, which is about 7km away. The buses are irregular and do not link well. It is very hard to get a pram on a bus, and if there were 5 or 6 travelling parents with prams, it can become chaotic.
Effective public transport requires reliable frequent service, reasonable cost, sensible linkages. That is very hard to achieve in NZ using the big city examples you speak of. I suspect a different approach is required.
I’d like to see more mini-buses on frequent trips linking to high speed train services that connect key areas (including Auckland-Wellington on a bullet)
That would require more planning and imagination that is possessed by the bureaucratic powers that be.
August 10th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
Dear Frog, I’m curious. What is the trigger that makes my comment “awaiting moderation.” Is it a size of post thing???
August 10th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
zenTiger -
If you are going to go off on this tangential BS with Lucyna I wish you well. There isn’t any point in talking to people about mass transit if they are going to obsess about what was possibly the worst absolute dictatorship in history. I’ve read the Gulag, and I’ve seen the country, watched “Burned by the Sun” and neither you NOR Lucyna have any excuse for going off on Stalin or my knowledge of him. You are aware of the hundreds of construction deaths on the NY Subways no doubt, and the fact that those laborers were immigrants who’s economic choices were limited to working down there or starving.
The subjects are mass transit and whether capitalist countries build it and run it better than socialist countries. The subsidized fares in Moscow make it possible to USE the subway and it is the most heavily used mass transit system on the planet…. and you never have to wait. Which is WHY it is so heavily used. Wander down to a subway platform in NYC, wait for the train you need to catch… 8-10 minutes on average. Do not breathe deeply. Open the eyes in the back of your head. Connect somewhere to go to Queens… another 15 minute delay. You want to come back? You just spent $4 US and the best part of 2 hours. Now try the equivalent in Moscow.
No… I have lived with both. I know which is better. I know WHY it is better. It isn’t just what was built or how. It is also the long history of being run by the state, maintained at state expense with a lot of frequent trains.
There are things that pure capitalism excels at, consumer goods, market balance, efficient delivery of services.. and there are things it absolutely sucks at. Mass transit, public health delivery, public schools and industry regulation.
respectfully
BJ
August 10th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
Zen Tiger: Yeah, I have to approve comments over a certain length and all those with links in them, and also those containing particular keywords that pick up a lot of spam comments (like “casino”).
August 10th, 2005 at 2:09 pm
BJ. There are no rules that say I cannot go off on a tangent. I would not class the issue as BS either. I was in no way “going off” on your knowledge of Stalin, I was just making my point about the history of the Great Russian Public Works.
The tangential point was merely to remind people many things that are the pride of Russia were built on slave labour to a scale that dwarfs the NYC subways you are now equating them to. As annoying to me as equating Gitmo to the Gulags.
The tangential point was somewhat inspired by your comments about the evils of capitalism. Merely some balance. You say capitalism excels at delivery of services, but suck at mass transit and public health delivery (services to be delivered?).
Socialist leaning NZ suck at mass transit and public health delivery.
If your point about living in Moscow and experiencing the benefits of a wonderful, cheap mass transit system is the model for NZ, I fail to see your point. How does the Moscow system provide the inspiration to solve the NZ problem?
(1) It carries several million people per day. We will not hit that number in Auckland, unless we change our immigration policy, let alone the issues for Wellington and other regional centres.
(2) We don’t have the same ability to appropriate land. But wait, if we vote Green, maybe that will change?
(3) Investment cost versus return - Not important in Russia? Not important in New Zealand? It’s tax payer dollars, so no fiscal restraint is required?
(4) Is this where you get around to suggesting a work for the dole scheme that provides all of the labour we need?
Maintained at State expense is another soft phrase for maintained at the expense of tax payers. But we don’t have 9 million tax payers in Auckland.
respectfully
ZT
August 10th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
Yes I live in Wellington and no I do not drive everywhere - living in Thorndon many places are within wlaking distance.
People have missed my point. Public transport is great in cities where it will work. But people are dreaming if they think public transport rather than roads will help Auckland. Get a decent motorway network, and then complement that with better public transport. Also lets remember buses need roads to run on.
August 10th, 2005 at 3:51 pm
ZenTiger, I think you’ll find that Green transport policies would require less appropriation of land (forced purchase) than National or ACT transport policies.
Private property rules unless you want to whack a motorway through someone’s living room, right?
August 10th, 2005 at 4:44 pm
or indeed United No-Future policies who announced that they want to build a four-lane highway from Kaitaia to Invercargill. What about NZ First? Are they as indocrinated by the cult of the car?
It’s rather orwellian isn’t it. Four wheels good, two wheels bad. Four wheels good, six wheels bad. Four wheels good, 32 wheels bad. I must have my shiney new six lane highway even if quality of life suffers, even if it bankrupts the country, even if there is nothing left in the city but roads afterwards.
August 11th, 2005 at 7:36 am
zenTiger
We will have to go back to the beginning to see what I originally pushed on about. Which basically was that David was playing fast and loose with reality in Wellington, not Auckland. As an aside I added my impressions of the quality of various subway/mass-transit schemes and you and Lucyna both, she far more than you, went blazing off on a diatribe about Stalin.
Thanks for that, but I already knew all I need to know about the butcher.. and about Beria… and what the heck they have to do with mass transit, or the labour of slaves in Russia, wage slaves in the US, Coolies on the Transcontinental Railroad, Slave labor on the Australian railroad or the slave trade up to the Civil War is damned little. ALL “civilized” countries have practiced slavery in their past. Off Topic with a vengeance…. because someone wants to tell me that “Capitalism” is better than “Communism”.
My Latvian Project Manager told me a VERY old joke “Under Communism Man exploits Man, under Capitalism it is the other way around”. Neither model is capable of functioning in its pure form.
Now lets go back on topic.
I never held the Moscow up for NZ to follow, NZ must go its own way. The situation in Wellington is one of a drastically neglected infrastructure which DOES work pretty well, getting to the point of needing quite a lot of money just to keep it working pretty well. The gain in ridership that David points to isn’t the point, the LOSS in ridership should the rail be neglected further is the real problem.
As for making the design work MUCH better… the needed changes would probably mean a lot more investment in rail than merely to repair the neglect. I haven’t any expectation that that can happen, nor do I expect it, but the inspiration from Moscow (and Kiev), is this.
More trains more frequently with the fares subsidized more heavily.
More trains more frequently is tougher if you don’t have a loop. It can be done, but you need more rolling stock and dual tracking… the dual tracking with GOOD track (summer speed restrictions anyone?) is feasible in the Wellington Metro Region, and in most of Auckland (which was not a topic of this discussion). Most of it is already dual tracked. Some changes at the Porirua Station terminus and some changes in the Hutt and you’re close. Then through a light-rail system to Johnsonville and also out to the Airport, through the heart of the city. It’d be harder to do this but this is the only significant “taking” of land we’re talking about ISN’T it ? AND we’re already doing most of that taking for the bypass AREN”T we?
The reason people take the Moscow Metro is that the trains run often and cheap. The run whether they’re full or empty, and there’s an analogy to an escalator that would serve. People take the escalators in NCP because they are there and they can get on one immediately. They leave the elevator located a few steps away, strictly to the shopkeepers deliveries, because they would have to wait for the elevator.
If I want to go from Porirua to Wellington and I KNOW that the most time I’d have to wait to get a departing train was 12 munutes and the cost is only a buck I am not going to take a car. Parking fees and petrol both eat far more than that. With the current delays, fares and parking fees however, anytime I take my family to town we go by car. That wait time is the key to the utilization of mass transit. Transfers are less important than that the wait times be small. Whaikanae to Porirua is a regular train, but from Porirua inbound has to be very nearly a shuttle operation.
As for taxes and subsidies and roads…. you pay one way or another. The “more roads” business you and David support is perversely blind to the cost of the second and third car AND the roads and parking demands on the infrastructure. That’s all “private enterprise” so you don’t mind paying the parking company $6 for the day, but god forbid you should take the train for a buck and pay an extra $3 in taxes so the train can run at that sort of cost when you take it.
Finally David…. I have I think, just illustrated that there are ways to make Auckland work BETTER with mass transit than with massive roadworks projects. Auckland has a physical layout almost as challenging as Wellington. Less vertical but plenty of water… however, the use of doubled track, major increases in train frequency a bit of actual planning would make it possible.
Stipulate a $1 fare in Auckland, anyplace-anyplace, trains every 10 minutes from anyplace, and decent coverage of the suburbs, and you WILL see ridership that rivals Moscow’s. The answers CAN be applied and I am astonished that you would deny that. The problem is that they cost more than we’re accustomed to paying for rail after 2 decades of neglect, and we’re used to the high prices of roads, petrol and inner-city parking.
It’s all about control, and its all about taxes, and people who have money can use their private cars and leave the instant they’re ready and not wait for a train, so why should they have to pay taxes to pay for the train? That the model doesn’t work is amply demonstrated in LA which is trying desperately to create a Mass Transit infrastructure from scratch, BECAUSE the roads don’t work…. and if you want to see “taking” of private property and pigs flying that’s the place to be.
Buses don’t necessarily run on the same roads as cars. Adelaide has a rather unique system of guided busways. Works well as they aren’t ever STUCK IN TRAFFIC themselves.
respectfully
BJ