The average voter doesn't understand the concept of externalities.
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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Very little of the cost in that comic is external. People seem to ignore what owning a car costs
The average voter also can’t see a long term perspective but only lives in the present, and can’t see other people's perspectives but only their own.
Not only can they not see externalities like climate change, they can’t see long term issues like climate change and they can’t see anyone wanting to do anything differently from themselves.
They also can't see long term issues like traffic keeps getting worse and getting a few hundred people off rhe road at rush hour would actually be fucking awesome
A critical amount of voters is not supposed to understand or realise the concept of externalities.
The average voter couldn't find their own ass with both hands, a map and a flashlight.
To be fair I wouldn't either. I need a mirror for seeing that.
My normal bike should be subsidized
Mine is, with kilometres of cycle paths, some of them even maintained
Charge a tax per kilometer/mile driven for vehicles with batteries, hydrogen, NG, or internal combustion and all commercial vehicles reported and paid monthly.
Suddenly public transit will flourish.
Not just that, a tax on ownership of a car as well.
The funds can then to go making public transit free for all, and improving its punctuality, availability, and comfort.
Since it's free at use and provided for by taxes, it will encourage a ton of people to use public transit.
And if you buy a bike, you get a subsidy.
Most states have a annual registration fee that does that. And a property tax and a sales tax when purchased or sold.
For me excise tax on cars goes to the town, supposedly for local road maintenance.
And gas tax, though that's been a bit complicated by EVs...
Every transport costs something. Making public transport completely free can be a recipe for a financially troubled public transport company, and since no-one pays anyway (so no one actively decides to use PT over other means) there is little incentive to the public transport company to make it more reliable, higher comfort etc.
Public transport should be very affordable (and for sure way cheaper than private car usage), but not completely free. The only free thing is walking.
The problem you're running into there is you're treating public transport as a capitalistic for-profit business incentivised by making money rather than a public service incentivised by serving the public. When public transport is run purely for profit the goal is to find the maximum people will pay for the minimum level of service.
Regardless, free public transport with privately owned public transport can still work. Where I am there's free public transport by bus for anyone under 22, over 60, or with a disability, funded by the government despite the fact public transport is privately owned. The only complaint I have is that I don't fall into any of those categories. The busses are usually clean enough, regular-ish (usually one every 15 minutes for popular routes at peak times), and you'll usually get wifi and maybe a usb charging port. Modern busses are electric too which makes use of our mostly renewable energy generation. It's like a train that can get stuck in traffic.
It might be a lot to ask in some places but really all you need is a functioning government who work for the people rather than themselves. Enough people use public transport that it puts pressure on politicians to keep services running well otherwise they get voted out.
No I disagree this is not a capitalism problem imo. In order to be able for public transport to work at all, there needs to be some hurdle. Otherwise what you stimulate is healthy pedestrians taking a bus for 1 stop 'cause it's free anyway' and cyclists will transfer to public transport 'cause it's free anyway'. The net results are negative for society: fuller vehicles while it's not necessary, worse service because there is no incentive to PT company to gain/retain/please customers, financial abyss for the company when public funding situation changes with a different political tide.
Absolutely free should only exist very well targeted at certain groups, discounts at certain other groups, but those who can pay should pay a fair price. Of course it should be strongly subsidised (mainly infrastructure building and maintaining) but a healthy PT company has at least 50 % of their exploitation income self-generated from tickets, selling advertisement space etc. A 100 % subsidised PT company is an incredible weak target for political tide otherwise, and will lose touch with their main goal of efficiently moving as many people as possible.
The super heavily subsidised tramways to bumfuck nowhere in the soviet union were just as big a problem there and then as the 7 lane highways with no good PT alternatives is here and now.
You need to be able to measure real demand on routes and you need to stimulate as many people as possible to walk and cycle, only use PT when needed. That combination of subsidies and some pricing creates the sweet spot. "Free!" is just easy slogan, but not the solution for most real situations. Fully free PT will create many other problems. Just the health benefit alone of stimulating people to walk or cycle for short distances is enormous. I stand by my opinion, it should be cheap/affordable, but not free.
People taking the bus is the entire point.
It's also healthier than those people going into a car, since more people in buses means fewer cars on the road, and correspondingly, less pollution, and correspondingly - fewer roads and parking spots are needed. Which in turn frees up space to live, enjoy nature, and life.
If you want to motivate people to walk and bicycle, you will also need to foster a good public transit infrastructure: that'll enable walking and bicycling in other cities. After all, who will walk to another city? You walk to a bus stop, take it, then a train, and then you walk.
Way easier than spending precious minutes on searching a parking spot and being miserable in a traffic jam, stressing about other drivers, and so on.
Subsidised tramlines are a solution. With public transit lines being added, people will also flock to living near those.
You're aware that taxes exist, right? They can be funded through those.
Besides, it's best to stop focusing on money like it's a holy cow ... focus on community and accessibility instead: and that is where public transit shines. It makes everything accessible.
A monetary value on transportation provides information about needed and desired routes. Without such information a PT company runs empty busses to empty stops, just for the subsidies.
The best way of funding PT is a combination of taxes and ticket income.
This is the same answer for people crying that it’s unfair EV drivers don’t pay a gas tax. Ok but the answer is not to be unfair toward something you don’t understand but replace that with a fee by miles and weight for all motorized transportation
You could've just said "privately owned vehicles"
i don't want human powered bicycles or skateboards taxed. those should be encouraged.
so should e-bikes but those are basically motorcycles in a propeller hat so they get taxed.
Tax by the mass of vehicles with the 4th cube law, as that's the damage they due to roads.
I'd recommend $10/year for bicycles.
I enjoy that argument because even if you charged bicycles 1¢, cars would still be huge sums of money per year.
Great cartoon. Sad, though: This leaves out the massive tax credits & other government shell outs to the oil companies.
The cartoon is over 85% text. Not good. The value in cartoons is the ability to convey ideas visually. This is not a great cartoon.
I’d say it’s more of an infographic, or a rant in cartoon form.
In those contexts it’s well-presented.
And that leaves out the massive level of subsidies to fossil-fuel producers and importers.
Look at all the GDP that cars create! Don’t you want GDP?!
I went on the LA subway as a tourist, my first time in the USA. It was terrifying. It was also way too cheap, id happily pay 3x the price for it to be less terrifying
Too cheap? Public transit should be free.
Offer to pay more taxes instead or defund stuff like the military.
In USA, isn't tax considered an affront to freedom?
The LA public transport is in a death spiral because the taxpayers dont see a need for it because they all have cars. So funding gets directed elsewhere. But they want to people to not have the excuse "oh, it's too expensive" for not using it, so they make the fare super cheap.
Therefore, it's caught between hardly any funding and also hardly any income
And don't forget healthcare costs. Treating traffic accident victims costs huge amounts of money.
Only if you have some evil socialist public healthcare. Privatization means you can charge the victims for the impact of shitty and unsafe infrastructure
Surprise, emergency rooms are often subsidized when people are treated and discharged without the ability to pay. It was one of the rationals for why ACA was cost saving.