The automobile is faster, more reliable, more convenient, more flexible and less expensive than alternative forms of transportation for the vast majority of Americans.
Automobiles burn fossil fuel and add to pollution problems.
On both scores, they violate the sensibilities of the environmental lobby. James Q. Wilson points out that Americans already have voted. They continue to buy more cars, even as the cost of them soars because of government mandates. For comparison, look at the dogooders' love affair with buses. Mass transit projects in Los Angeles, Jacksonville and Washington, D.C., have run up huge costs, but no payoffs, yet.