The bottom line is there’s a huge economic investment that has to happen to do any of this and in most cases it will hit the lower middle class and poorest the worst. A new car payment, a new gas tax, higher electricity prices all hit them harder than it would hit me or you.[/quote]
There are ways to mitigate that, if only we had the willingness to do it.
Free, or nearly free public transport? That would spur so a lot of infrastructure investment and change the face of urban planning.[/quote]
The problem for public transportation is not the cost to the users, it’s the distance, 500 meters and cost to society build and run it.
Planet wide, culture wide, it’s repetitively shown to the be the maximum distance people are willing to walk for public transportation on a regular basis.
Free is bad. We need to stop saying free. We need to stop thinking free. We need to stop thinking an all you can gorge on buffet is good, whether it’s health care, education, consumer goods or an actual buffet.
Over consumption is the problem. You don’t solve over consumption with ‘free’.
