No motorist, however, thinks he or she is part of the problem. Short term or long term, we must recognize the failure and wrong-headedness of a public policy that is trying to force people from their cars. We have to treat the public like adults who are capable of making rational choices about meeting their own social and economic needs rather than recalcitrant adolescents who are to be treated more like patients than customers. We should have mass transit compete in terms of quality, making it and all the other alternatives to the auto better, rather than trying to make travel by auto worse. Homelessness is on the increase in affluent Fairfax County, and 89 percent of the residents of inner-city Washington do not have a car.
Public transportation can help people move into the economic mainstream.
No, but we can improve everyone's situation and expand options, despite those whose agenda it is to convince us that nothing can be done. I cannot decide whether that comment is brilliant or flippant, but it does cause me to question some of my own attitudes. I count myself among those who think some new roads are needed but that others will only generate more traffic. Traffic congestion in Virginia's urban and suburban areas is pushing transportation to the top of the political agenda. But nobody seems to have many solutions.