Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Transportation Choice, Or Forced Mass Transit?
This Canadian non-profit research organization advocates several changes to society in the name of bringing choice in transportation alternatives to commuters. The collective changes it advocates add up to forced mass transit for all but the rich, however.
First, they advocate linking odometer readings to charges for road use and insurance rates, charging more for insurance and road taxes to drivers who drive greater distances. We already have a system in place in this country for road use taxes based on distance -- gas taxes. But linking insurance rates to odometer readings only benefits insurance companies; it is nothing more than a punishment to drivers who use their vehicles more and has no benefit to the public at large.
The idea is to encourage drivers to abandon their personal vehicles in favor of mass transit by making it too expensive to drive long distances.
The Institute also advocates reducing or eliminating parking space for personal vehicles in residential areas and eliminating free parking where it currently exists. This would make it impractical to even own a personal vehicle, even if it is seldom driven. To even get from one's home to their personal vehicle would require either some form of public transportation to get to it or to have a chauffeur bring it to one's home. Only the rich can afford a chauffeur and only the rich could afford a car under this scenario.
To implement these changes would require rebuilding current housing to eliminate personal parking. Since that is unlikely, it would drive up the cost of such housing, making it affordable only to the rich. New housing would have no space for personal parking, making existing housing that does more desirable and increasingly rare. Those without the means to pay for parking a vehicle or actually driving it and also to pay more for housing that provides parking space would be forced to live where they can get by with public transportation -- the inner cities. The quality of life for the vast majority of people would suffer and their practical choices in transportation and lifestyle would be fewer, not greater.
