Eventually, I suspect most of the benefits of mass transit are likely to come by way of self-driving, electric cars.

If we’re going to spend taxpayer money over my objections, I think there are some things you can spend it on that are better than others. If instead of spending $700 billion in stimulus, for instance, we had run natural gas lines along the interstates to facilitate natural gas distribution to filling stations nationwide, I suspect that would have done more for the economy, national defense, and the environment than squandering that money on stimulus the way they did.

Likewise, if we’re going to spend money on mass transit over my objections, and self-driving, electric cars are likely to deliver most of the benefits of mass transit anyway, then I’d rather the government spent that money on the infrastructure necessary to make self-driving, electric cars happen sooner rather than later. Rumble strips, standardization of striping, installing the infrastructure for charging in garages, etc., etc., all that stuff is gonna be expensive–but not as expensive as doing it anyway–and building a bunch of mass transit infrastructure that may soon be obsolete anyway.

I’d rather they didn’t spend our money on any of this stuff, but if they’re going to do it anyway, why spend it on last century’s solutions?