Comments on: This Line of Thinking Can Never End in a Good Place

By: Per-Mile Tax Resurfaces as Big Government Solution - AIP Blog - American Issues Project

Thu, 07 May 2009 12:14:57 +0000

[...] LaHood suggested a per-mile tax on American drivers to fund infrastructure projects. At the time, I wrote: Here’s the hitch. In order to do that, they have to be able to track everywhere you drive [...]

By: fostert

fostert — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:37:28 +0000

I should say that Asia is a very big place and there are obviously exceptions. Laos is pretty much an entirely rural country. The biggest city, Vientiane (Vien Chiang, as they say), has 130,000 people. The only decent road in the country was built by the Chinese so they can get to Thailand. That road barely meets Texas standards (which are average for the US), but is awesome compared to Lao standards. Dirt roads are the norm there. But that's Laos, and I hope it stays that way. It's really beautiful. Vietnam is another exception. And it's country that is so beautiful that it makes Ireland seem brown. Their traffic is mostly motorbikes and bicycles. It makes crossing a street really easy. You don't wait for traffic to stop, you just walk right through it. It's like fording a stream. Except that you have motorcycles whizzing by you at fifty miles per hour and they miss you by inches. It's a little disconcerting at first, but you get used to it. But in the rest of Asia, traffic is really scary. Turkey has a reputation for having really crazy drivers, and they really are crazy. But the rest of Asia has even more insane drivers. In America, we criticize Asian drivers, but no American would even stand a chance in Asia. Explain to me how you would approach a five point intersection with no stoplights and the traffic moving at thirty miles per hour (they slow down for intersections). I still can't figure it out, and I've been through more intersections like that than I can count. It just works somehow. But it's a rush that no roller coaster can ever give you. But it still isn't near the rush you get when you're driving through an alley at sixty miles per hour. We're talking about alleys so narrow that I have to pull my knees in so that they don't get scraped on the buildings. My knees have an inch clearance on both sides, and we're going sixty miles per hour. Welcome to Vietnam. The motorbike taxi drivers in Bangkok are crazier than a shithouse rat, but they can't even hold a candle to the divers in Da Nang or Hanoi. Bangkok can at least say that people drive on the left side of the road. In Vietnam, they drive on both sides and the sidewalks. They stick to the right side only when it's convenient.

By: fostert

fostert — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:09:23 +0000

"I doubt that any country has as much heavy traffic as our roads."

You obviously have never been to Asia. The traffic there is horrendous. Roads are much more crowded there than here. In some sense, we have an excuse for our roads being so bad: nobody drives on them, anyway. If you don't believe me, check out the traffic in a medium sized city like Hyderabad, India. It's only seven million people, so it's pretty manageable by Asian standards. Yeah, it's a little bigger than that tiny village you call Baltimore, but it's still pretty small. It's nothing like Delhi or Beijing.

"I’d say you’re wrong about the quality of our roads."

Given that you are basing this belief on your lack of travel, I find your opinion less compelling than the reality I've seen.

By: fostert

fostert — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:01:57 +0000

“I’d say we’re funding our highway programs quite sufficiently, thanks.”

Umm, our highways are nowhere near what you’d see in Europe or Japan. China is meeting our quality of road building. But China has a conflict with Thailand over the the China-Southeast Asia road system. The reason? Thailand has better roads than America, and they expect that any road built in Thailand be built by Thai standards, which now exceed American standards. China wants those roads built by American standards. And that’s not acceptable to the Thai. When our road building standards are compromised by budgets to the point that Thailand will not accept such poor roads, we need to rethink our standards. If you think our roads should be worse than those of Thailand, you need to explain why they should be that way. And before you claim that this information isn’t true, remember that I have drive every Interstate highway in the US except for IS8, and I’ve driven the majority of Thai highways as well. I understand this issue better than anyone in the US, and better than almost anyone in Thailand. So tell me, why should Thailand have better roads than we do?

By: Jimmie

Jimmie — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 01:13:09 +0000

We'll see what happens down the road. As we've seen, the President is quite capable of standing on opposite sides of the same issue if you give him enough time.

By: Jimmie

Jimmie — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 01:12:06 +0000

Again, you attribute a belief to me that I do not have and you have no evidence that I have. You simply assume that you know what I think. Stop it.

By: Jimmie

Jimmie — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 01:11:25 +0000

I'd say you're wrong about the quality of our roads. My bet is that you're not considering the amount and type of traffic that American roads get, compared to those in Europe and Asia. I doubt that any country has as much heavy traffic as our roads.

By: fostert

fostert — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:13:16 +0000

I'll also note that Obama has already rejected this policy. He's a slick politician. He knows damn well how to leave the stupid Republican holding the bag. The more I see how Obama works, the more I respect him. He's way slicker than any Republican can ever dream of, yet he's still pushing the right policies. But I'm sure you will still criticize Obama for rejecting the stupid policies proposed by a Republican that you criticized.