Mass Transit is Amazing For Everyone (Else)

Last week, the American Public Transportation Association reported that 74 percent of people support more mass transit spending. But only 5 percent of commuters travel by mass transit. This support, in other words, is largely for others.
CityLab at the Atlantic has an interesting look at how most people think mass transit benefits their communities but are not willing to stop driving their car to work. They’re even willing to pay more in taxes so that their cities can build bus routes and subway lines that no one ever uses while everyone just waits in vain for other people to use so that there will be less traffic on the way into work and the Earth won’t die as quickly.
You can’t really feel smug about taking public transpo when you live in New York, where driving to work would be a special kind of hell. But if you live in a city where it’s possible to park and drive and blare the radio and not be surrounded on all sides of your body by terrible terrible people on your way to things, and you still take public transportation: you get to feel smug.
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