Columnist Steven Greenhut explains why public transit will never replace the auto, and chastises planners trying to use transit for social engineering.
"The Orange County Transportation Authority, charged with developing the transportation systems that move us around, is dominated by ideologues who echothat trendy anti-car sentiment.
...I call it nostalgia as public policy, as planners ignore the way Americans really get around and instead try to build retro-style systems that would prod us to live like in olden days.
...As a longtime transit user, I can attest that the transit-dependent world planners are recreating is a dreadful dystopian place of shuffling, huddled masses filing into train cars and buses, building their lives around other people's schedules and other people's preferences.
...Mobility is freedom. Which largely explains why government officials, academics and planners are so hostile to the automobile, suburbia and every other icon of the American Dream."
[Editor's note: The OC Register required free registration.]
Thanks to PreservingtheAmericanDream
FULL STORY: The fevered dreams of transit planners
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