From: tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich)
Subject: Gas Taxes R Us 
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 23:34:08 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Distribution: rec.bicycles

Well, the social reformers are crying on our shoulders
again. It is pretty plain to most people that
transportation alternatives are a tricky and very
complicated subject.

Not so to the social reformers though. All it takes is a
quick and painful tax and the railroad system will expand
like never before. Subways will sprout like beanstalks.

Amtrak has a little experience in this subject:
Consistently they have managed to get ridership up to the
point of paying approximately 55% of their expenses. Maybe
you all will recall the crying of the social reformers in
Congress to the effect that if we pay for Amtrak it will
soon learn to pay for itself. Well, last year it cost the
American taxpayer $.12 for _every_ passenger mile on
Amtrak. And there were about 6 billion of those for a
direct cost to the taxpayer of a $720,000,000.

Virtually every light rail and subway commuting system in
the United States is in the same predicament. Generously
subsidized transportation _is_ mass transit.

And you must compare this to the two _trillion_ passenger
miles traveled annually by automobiles. And the fact that
only 13% of all households in the United States do not own
and operate automobiles. This makes it easy to see that an
assault on the automobile industry is a pretty direct
assault on the American economy and society. And that the
'tax gas' crowd is a small minority.

Of course they all say that if we change slowly enough the
market trends will balance out. But then they offer
Draconian tax 'incentives' that would more easily be
compared to the gas crisis of 1972.

I was asked for information about mass transportation
statistics. The comment of mine that was being criticized
was where I stated that people historically didn't use mass
transit. So to that end let me quote from the Information
Plus book on Transportation (copyright 1991):

"In 1827, a 12 passenger horse-drawn carriage began
carrying passengers along Broadway in New York City
_marking_the_debut_of_mass_transportation_." (Emphasis
mine.) Perhaps my critics can tell me how people commuted
via mass transportation before this time?

I was also asked for statistics about the social costs of
the medical problems caused by draft animals which
powered cities until steam and ICE became common and cheap.

In this I simply do not have the time nor feel the
inclination to document. But a trip to any museum would
turn up rafts of information on these problems. And talking
to anyone that lived then is enlightening. There are still
people around that lived a significant portion of their
lives in areas without mechanized power sources. My own
experiences on a farm lend credence to the stories I've
been told.

Furthermore, I have a medical book printed in about 1857
(after Lister discovered antisepsis and before Pasteur
discovered the cure for rabies) that is about 3 inches
thick. Most of the diseases discussed are caused directly
or indirectly by the filth of farm or draft animals.
(Curiously, they state categorically that tobacco use
causes cancer.)

Another quote from the Transportation book: "American
employees increasingly prefer commuting in their cars
rather than by mass transit; the traditional concepts of
mass transit have not been able to keep up with today's
fast changing economy. Transportation routes no longer
shape the configuration of a city's growth, but rather are
shaped by it."

Are we to, instead, decide to go back a hundred years
because some social reformers are sure that their answers
are much better than the public's?

Yet, I do admit that mass transportation would solve many
social ills infecting our world. I just think that they
will improve through evolution, not revolution which is the
really what the tax equation amounts to.