"Cherry-picking" is an old reliable used by monopolies defending
themselves. My opinion is that it is a herring as red as the cherries,
and not nearly as tasty.
So don't compare apples with cherries. Look at what has happened to
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS under the regimes you propose. There
are examples. You don't have to sit in an economically rationalist
tower and dream about it, or pretend that buses on streets are just
like photons along fibres.
[...]
>Seriously, I'm interested in how Muni is to be "rescued" by what you
>advocate. Would destroying the notion of a transportation _system_
>improve services to users?
>I would be perfectly happy if we
>simply removed all subsidies from all transportation, and let the market
>decide[.]
Amen!
Look, we can all dream about this for the next fifty years, but it
isn't going to happen. It's well and good to imagine happy regimes in
which Consumer Choice (or Advertising Bought By Large Corporations)
Triumphs Over All, and in which every proposal in the world is exposed
to the scrutiny of Consumers With Perfect Information in the realm of a
Level Playing Field, and in which All Externalities are Perfectly
Internalized, but that isn't going to happen.
Nothing would make me happier than for carbon production to be taxed
at $80/ton. The odds are Muni (or Andrew Sullivan's own entrpreneurial
competing service) would thrive. Cars wouldn't be subsidized.
Everything would be great.
It isn't going to happen any time soon.
So how is Muni going to be Rescued in the meantime?
(It's amazing to see people throw up their arms in the face of
seemingly-intractable bureaucratic and contractual problems in one
agency in one small city, and replace the problem with one of standing
the economic basis of the largest economy of the world on its head.
You get a couple of hundred members to care about fixing Muni; you
get wars started when you threaten to mess with the cost of oil.)