If more people did care about actually knowing how much they are spending on transportation, we’d be much better off as individuals and as a planet.

1. Many places in the US simply do not have the population density to support large scale public transit systems. These systems naturally have more adantage in large cities where there are pleanty of customers, they carry more people compared the the amount of physical space they take, and if built properly they can be faster than the congested big city traffic.

2. Even in big cities where we do have big public transity systems, many are not built or run efficiently. This is the biggest problem. You can’t do much about public transit in places like (where I’m from–Wyoming, just not enough poeple), but where there are enough people the public transity system needs to be so efficient that it is actually faster and more convenient than taking a personal car.

I’ve spent some time in Japan. Their transit systems are amazing. They’re fast, efficient, clean, definity better than taking a car. Until we build public transit the right way, people will always go back to their cars once the price of gas goes back down.

“Simple economics. Right now travel in a car is cheaper than public transportation, car pooling, and other methods that people fled to when gas was $4.75 a gallon. Again folks…it’s all about saving money. We work for spending money, we spend to live and live to spend and at the end of the day, we hope that there is money left over to retire on.”

I don’t know where you’re getting that “Simple Economics” from. From where I stand, you got to pay for insurance, preventive maintenance (the older the vehicle, the more you are paying), plus any tolls you may encounter, plus traffic and parking tickets you might get as well as gas.

Whereas, I’m paying about $63.00 a month for a bus pass, a little more for one that can get me through the zone fare system in King County, WA state without paying extra.

This article points out how short our memory is as a country. The only effective way to “kick the habit” is to phase in a higher gasoline tax. I say we pass a law that schedules a gradually increasing tax that is returned as an income tax credit. It would go

1) No increase for 2 years, to let people change their buying plans and auto companies to change their production plans.

2) For the following 5 years, add $.10 to the gasoline tax every three months, to a maximu of $2/gallon. Return this money to all taxpayers every year as an income tax credit (about $1000/person at $2/gallon).

This simple program (the Strategic Energy Tax Shift?) would naturally create the right incentives to genuinely lower petroleum consumption. Customers would demand efficient cars AND drive them less. Domestic auto manufacturers would know there would be demand for those cars, and would be able to confidently invest their tight resources in them, knowing they could sell them profitably.

As a conservative, I like it because it lets companies and consumers determine the best way to balance fuel efficiency with all the other important vehicle performance areas (space, comfort, acceleration, braking, etc.), rather than having some bureaucrat decide everything will be electric – or hybrid – or diesel – or ethanol fueled – or ? I also like the fact that it doesn’t try to answer the question “What is a truck?” like CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) does, whether imported vehicles should count toward a domestic auto maker’s CAFE, or whether alternative-fuel vehicles should get a bonus in CAFE calculations. CAFE has been too complicated and makes very strange decisions to be made in designing a car.

Thinking as a liberal, it would do more to reduce petroleum consumption, and it would remove the main liberal complaint that a gas tax is regressive. The income tax credit would be given back to all filers, whether they pay taxes or not. Conservatives would have to swallow a little hard to accept this, but on the whole, it reduces bureaucracy.

Once the tax credits are paid, this would give people some change to buy a more fuel-efficient car, which is good, since the required technology will drive up costs.

As someone who works for a domestic automaker, what I like best is that it puts customers on the same page with us on a consistent basis. We wouldn’t need to worry about whether cheap fuel prices might suddenly encourage people to drive SUV’s again.

How about petitioning for this?

Each and every experience was excellent. The DC was exceptional. I was going to drive, but decided to take the train, instead. This saved more than an hour each way, avoiding some messy traffic and eliminating the need to pay $41 per night to story my car in the hotel’s garage.

Public transit is slower than driving unless traffic is really bad. It’s a fair point. However, most drivers neglect to calculate the full cost of their cars as I outlined above. The time you spend on transit doesn’t have to be wasted. Bring a book. Driving solo is destroying the environment.

Even with all externalities, that is never true, ever, unless your time is of no value to you. Public transportation is glacial, filthy, uncomfortable, even intimidating. Even if my time had no value, my safety would still have enough to minimize my exposure to the real dangers of American public transportation.