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Comment by jayd16 | Hacker News Reader

I like trains but the logic is flawed. If we banned hats, or made it so they were very expensive, less people would wear hats. And sure, probably more places would worry about shade because hats are not an option... But it doesn't really prove that's the right thing to do or that hats are inefficient use of cloth.

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Hats are pretty objectively an ineffecient use of cloth, here. Roads are incredibly expensive to maintain societally because cars cause so much wear-and-tear; cars, maintenance, and insurance are expensive on the individual; lack of foot-traffic is expensive for business-owners; individual car-use is much more expensive on the planet and power grid; travel is more difficult & and dangerous for children and old-folks… it goes on and on.

Having sprawling towns that require cars to get around is pretty obviously a bad idea from so many fronts. Trains, trolleys, and bikes are better on all these points.

> Roads are incredibly expensive to maintain societally because cars cause so much wear-and-tear;

Actually the wear and tear due to cars is minimal compared to that of trucks. The relationship of wear to mass is nonlinear. Which isn't to say that buttering half the earth with asphalt isn't a seemingly absurd use of resources.

It's not about artificially increasing car ownership price, it's about making people pay for what they use (parking space) instead of having it paid for by the whole society like a socialized good.

But it is. Otherwise we'd just be talking about raising meter prices and not trains.

When all public parking will be metered we'll talk! For now, in US most parking is free.

For example supermarket parking: they are forced by law to build huge parking lot. You pay not those not with your taxes but with your groceries, even if you take the bus or walk to go to the supermarket.

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