from Kevin Williamson in National Review, Plans, Trains, and Automobiles

Trains are the preferred mode of transit if your ideal is central planning. Automobiles are the preferred mode of transit if your ideal is spontaneous order. It is in the nature of trains that they tell you where to go; it is in the nature of automobiles (for the time being, at least!) that you tell them where to go. If you have ever lived in New York and relied on the trains to get around, then you understand both the virtues and defects of the planning model: If everything goes according to plan, the system works pretty well. When the plan breaks down — which it always does — it is a mess, often a mess that leaves you with no choice but to go outside the system for an alternative. (That fellow from the 19th century would probably think Uber is pretty nifty.)

Likewise, if you’ve spent much time in Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, or any American city that got most of its growth in the post–World War II era, then you appreciate the virtues and defects of the spontaneous-order life: The price of gasoline is unpredictable, traffic is terrible in some places (although here there is a bit of central planning to blame, too, in the form of Dwight Eisenhower’s ill-considered federal highway system), the cost of owning and maintaining a car is very burdensome for some people and introduces an unwelcome degree of financial uncertainty into their lives, some people insist on driving their F-350 Super Duty trucks 87 mph while swerving from lane to lane, suburban sprawl, etc.

Transit, like most everything else in life, is about trade-offs. There are many roads that lead to home and subways that will take you to the office, but there is no train to Utopia.

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