Matthew Yglesias is somehow offended by my recent post about the huge decline in the productivity of our socialized transit industry since 1970. He never addresses or even acknowledges any of the arguments made in my article. Instead, his problem is that the article “fails to acknowledge any government role in promoting the usage of private automobiles.” Since my article was about transit, not automobiles, I don’t see why I need to acknowledge government’s role in driving any more than I should acknowledge government’s role in our failed education system or any other government failing.
It could be that Yglesias is arguing that I am somehow inconsistent because I object to socialized transit without objecting to socialized highways. If so, he would be wrong: In books, papers, and policy statements I have argued that highways should be funded out of user fees, not taxes; that states should encourage private highway construction; and that the federal government should get out of the highway business. That isn’t in any way inconsistent with my article on transit.
It could be that Yglesias is going further and arguing that “government’s role in promoting the usage of private automobiles” somehow contributed to the huge decline in transit productivity since 1970. If so, he would be wrong. Since 1970, government’s role in transportation has mainly been to steal money from the users of roads that carry 85 percent of American passenger travel and spend that money supporting transit systems that move barely 1 percent of all passenger travel. In 2008 alone, more than $15 billion in federal, state, and local highway user fees were spent on transit, which did highway users little good (see cell O17).
Yglesias says that government land‐use policies have caused “regulatory impediments” to creating transit‐friendly cities. I’ve previously invited Yglesias to join me in calling for the elimination of all government land‐use policies, but he has remained silent about that. Instead, he would rather rant about things I didn’t say.
Since Yglesias is so fond of attacking me for things I haven’t said, let me return the favor by pointing out that one of the most common arguments that people like Yglesias use against highways (and he himself may not have made this argument) is what they call “induced demand.” That is, they say we shouldn’t build more roads (even if paid for entirely with user fees) because they will just lead people to drive more. This is supposed to be a bad thing because driving is supposed to be bad. But really, they are admitting that Americans want to use and are willing to pay for more roads, whereas in their demands for more subsidies to transit they are admitting that Americans are not willing to pay for their transit‐oriented utopias.
