And yeah, actually, what’s “natural” really does matter. Before federal highway investment started in 1916, we had a robust system that could handle shifts in fuel prices because more than one mode of travel competed with each other!

Instead of worrying what is natural and what is not, we should think about what kind of transportation system we want, how we are going to pay for it and then tax or subsidize whatever modes however much we want (and is feasible).

coupled with birth rates ranging from 1.2 to 1.5. Eurabia, here we come

I think
this is an interesting take on the US-Europe divide:

“For the past three weeks I’ve stayed and traveled in southern Germany (Swabia, between the Black Forest and Bavaria), Switzerland (the central region, around Lucern), and western Austria … In these parts of central Europe (all German speaking), I have been mightily impressed – as ever – by the strength of communal bonds, the presence of local cultures and distinctions, the persistence of tradition and memory, a culture that saves (in every sense), and a strong ethic of work aimed at preserving a high degree of independence. … This impression – admittedly somewhat biased by the particular areas where I’ve been staying – does not easily fit with the predominant American Left-Right views of Europe, both of which respectively praise or condemn “Europe” for its progressiveness. …According to the Right wing narrative, Europe is in the throes of cultural suicide, with its churches abandoned, its cradles empty, and incapable of dealing with the threat of internal Islamic domination given trajectories in the birth rate and the feebleness of the “multicultural” response. According to both narratives, Europe is largely … reducible to Amsterdam, Bruxelles and the Hague. … Indeed, the combination of local economies, nearby productive farmland outside every town, viable public transportation and widespread use of alternative energies points to a culture that has never abandoned sustainable communities in the way that America willfully and woefully has done over the past fifty years. You can also get some sense why there is even resentment here toward America’s wastefulness: the Europeans pay higher prices for everything in an effort to use less, and whatever “give” there is in the worldwide production of resources is a kind of unintended sacrificial gift that many Europeans are making so that America can continue its energy gluttony. That said, the last laugh will be theirs, I think, when our civilization corrodes with increasingly worthless suburban housing tracts, our incalculable debt, and our inability to finance the American way of life. … Here’s something funny: my German father-in-law – no friend of big government, and about as anti-60s one could find – describes this way of life (including the solar panels, etc.) as conservative. And what could be more conservative than the Swabian motto – “schafe, spare, Häusle baue” (work, save, build a house)?”

Japan also has fairly high gas taxes, but does not actually need to subsidize transit operations, which are covered by fares (though not construction costs).

I think another argument for a saner, more balanced policiy towards transportation might be that we’d ultimately spend less public funds on transportation altogether.

But we we have Hummers, Nascar and a crumbling empire.

America, Fuck yeah!