I just read this and thought I would blog about it. I live close to the Amtrak line leaving Oakland CA, and can see into the windows of the trains when the go by. This map gives you an idea of how close we are to the tracks (click the 'image' button to see more clearly). Those trains are constantly running empty. It's sick.

But what you might not be reporting as much on is the reason that those trains aren't so popular. Because the federal highway system is bankrolled by general treasury rather than user fees. In other words, the gas tax is an order of magnitude too low.

What I would like to know is why someone that doesn't drive at all (like the blogger above, as a New Yorker) is paying for the federal highway system. What does he get out of it? I would argue nothing that couldn't be paid for elsewhere. The (powerful) trucking lobby will tell him that everyone benefits from highways, that if gas taxes are too high, the trucks will not feed the country, and commerce will stop.

Of course that is not true, the market will adjust. Goods that require extensive energy to deliver or are not produced locally will either not be available, will be produced closer to where they are consumed, or will not be available at all in certain areas. Is this a bad thing? I would argue not. Demand for these goods will not disappear, and the production of them will be geographically dispersed. I could go on, but you get the picture.

It could also be argued that the costs of goods will rise. Indeed they will, but if this a zero-sum game, they will not rise any more than your taxes will fall from not paying for highways that you do not use. If you are a smart consumer that purchases locally made goods, you will probably be able to beat the averages even. This is the _ultimate_ form of letting the markets work to balance the means of production and consumption.

The only people that user-taxes injure are those that are (literally) getting a free ride by driving hundreds of miles to work on a daily basis. Artificially low gas prices that do not pay for the total costs of the miles that are driven encourage these people to move to these remote suburbs and waste precious resources on their daily drive to work.

In the end, we can talk all day about conservation, carpooling, and public transportation, but these changes will never happen unless the markets are left to do what they do best.