Most transit advocates I know – “Chuck, I just want a train” is one lament I’ve heard

Transportation coalitions and their patrons – a long list of professional whiners dedicated to perpetuating and exploiting the centralized, paternalistic relationship between state and local governments – will not have much to do in a depoliticized transportation system, one dedicated primarily to maintaining what we have already built.

(Note that there is a fairly large swath of people that think of themselves as “free market advocates” that will be shocked to find out how insolvent the current system is and how non-market oriented it is.

With auto-based infrastructure needing dramatically more money than is currently available just to maintain what we’ve already built, urban transportation advocates are forced to support lots of additional revenue for roads to get tepid support for walking, biking and transit funding. Going back to the war analogy, this is like deciding to engage a

We need the private sector to take the bulk of the risks in today’s economy.

our core transportation funding problem is that we’ve built more transportation infrastructure than we can effectively utilize. Our solution, bizarrely, is to build more.

Free Market Advocates (WINNERS): I count myself among this group and I love the concept of transportation spending decisions actually being made by supply and demand, not political patronage or an arbitrary standard.

Our economy is incredibly fragile. Our approach to transportation funding is incredibly fragile. The coalition proposals being put forth around the country will make the system more fragile, not less. Fragile systems eventually break.

Someone emailed me and said, “Chuck, I just want a train.” I get that. We live in a country where, through a complex set of financial circumstances, we created an illusion of wealth that has conditioned us to think big. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. America needs big thinkers with big ideas. And if your big idea is a train, you’ve been in the