hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> Highways (and airways) require a general subsidy too, but it is
> unknown because it is indirect and buried in other accounts:
Viewed by itself it's also quite deceptive, because there is so much
subsidy FROM drivers TO public transportation.
http://www.roadstothefuture.com is a pretty accurate summation of the
total picture.
> Highways and airports take up enormous amounts of land. Land is
> taxable, but when a highway or airport grows, that land is taken off
> the tax base. That's quite a nice subsidy. When transit was provided
> by private companies, they had to pay very high property taxes where
> their competition paid nothing.
Calling that a subsidy is a lie, one of many by leftists on this
topic. Property taxes exist to pay for community services such as
police, fire departments, schools, libraries, and parks. Roads do not
generate any demand for the last three, so there's no sense in taxing
them for them; and at least in California, the highway patrol are
funded entirely from vehicle registration fees.
> Highways and airports were built with tax free safe bonds which
> accordingly paid low interest.
Which ones? Any highway bond written in the last few decades has paid
the same interest as other bonds, otherwise it wouldn't sell. The
feds used to heavily fund highway building; now most federal
transportation money is earmarked for transit projects that they know
nobody will ride.
Transit system advocates come in two types: people who are still under
the delusion that others will ride transit, thus freeing up the
highways for themselves; and people who know perfectly well that
anything spent on transit is wasted, but who would rather waste
car-tax and gas-tax funds than allow them to be spent on needed road
expansion.
The environmental movement in general is really a front for a bunch of
rich elitists whose attitude is "we've already got our nice homes, and
we don't see the need to put up with more traffic noise or give up our
view of other people's unbuilt land just so others can live as well as
we do. And besides, the more of a scarcity of good housing we can
create, the more *our* investments will be worth. So screw anybody
who needs to buy a home!" Unfortunately, these are the people who own
and operate all the local planning agencies. That, in a nutshell, is
the essence of the twin scams known as urban planning and the
environmental movement.
John David Galt (jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us)