who subsidizes whom

Hi,

I mistyped “let” for “led” here’s the correct version:

Who Subsidizes Whom?

PATCO fares have doubled in the last decade and the longer ride on PATH into New York is half as much. I was speaking with a dedicated DRPA official who made it clear that he felt that PATCO riders were already subsidized by bridge tolls and that diversion of fees to other economic development was better than further subsidizing mass transportation. While “some” of these DRPA projects may be beneficial and mass transportation needs to become more efficient, there should be no diversion from mass transportation. If one takes a systemic view, it is painfully clear that those who walk, bike, or take mass transportation subsidize those who drive. The full cost of driving includes a variety of human and economic costs: global warming, air pollution, increased insurance premiums, over forty thousand traffic-related fatalities per year, and war! Petro dollars have flowed to oil-rich Middle Eastern Countries and trillions of defense-related dollars have been spent over the decades to prop-up these backward regimes, which has directly led to the horror of 9-11. The cost of the Iraq War is at least 120 billion while some have estimated it at 200 billion and growing – the end is nowhere in sight. To get an idea of what the impact of a war similar to the one in Iraq would be on us, we must scale it to our size. The US is about 12 times the size of Iraq. It would mean that 13,000 police would have been killed and more than 84,000 injured, 156,000 innocent men, women, and children would have been killed, and hundreds of thousands of others whom we label as “insurgents” but who think of themselves as “freedom fighters” would be dead. Who subsidizes whom!

John Nosek
CIS