The problem is simpler than your framing alludes. There are other modes of transit that are much safer with far fewer negative externalities than private cars, like walking, bike, bus, and rail. We repeatedly make a political decision in the US not to prioritize them. This spending for street safety is a step in the other direction, but by and large does very little to change the dominance of public spending on private cars in the US.
That political decision is due to a lack of support. Preferences have to change. One major factor standing in the way is the overwhelmingly poor service by most cities. So it's a bit of a catch-22 since service can't improve without money.
I'm not even going to bring up places like rural or lower density suburbs as the service there is almost non-existent.
I agree with everything you said in this comment, except for the lack of support. It's kind of a meme in online urbanist circles at this point that in the US you can pick either walkable or affordable. There's incredible demand for walkable places where you don't have to use a car, to the point where these places are not affordable for most people (I'm not saying all the demand for these dense places comes from walkability, but there is good research saying it's a strong factor). Your comment is also sort of based on the view that "whatever the (federal) government is doing is what the public ultimately demanded", which is clearly not true. Federal government agencies like USDOT act with a certain degree of autonomy, and their actions are very much open to public criticism as we are doing in this thread.
To bring up one more thing related to your point on rural and suburban areas, the low-density car-dependent development across the vast majority of the US is a deeply ingrained problem here. That is changing with more dense transit-oriented development happening across the country, but it will probably take decades for the needle to move significantly. And unfortunately the street safety measures that this money is going to are not going to help very much with this, which is sort of the point of the original comment.
These issues are all intertwined, but I don't understand the arguments in these comments that point out the problems are intertwined and stop there, as if that's a death knell for change (for example, political support for transit service is tied to the quality of that service). Yes, no one is denying they are intertwined, that is even why urbanists have started using terms like "car culture" that encapsulate the messy ball of issues. The more we discuss these issues, even online, the more consciousness arises in the public about how things can change; and things eventually do change. Hence the use of attention-grabbing call to action phrases like "cars are the problem" that started this thread, which provide an alternate framing.
I agree that the government isn't always following popular opinion. However, there is also a difference between idealistic opinion and reasonable opinion. People want better transit, but fewer people with to raise taxes for it, and fewer still can pock a tax they want to raise.
"To bring up one more thing related to your point on rural and suburban areas, the low-density car-dependent development across the vast majority of the US is a deeply ingrained problem here."
The current reality is that these aren’t options, in most American cities. My 20 minute commute is a 2.5 hour bus ride, according to google. My 20 minute commute also puts me into a neighborhood that I can afford.
> We repeatedly make a political decision in the US not to prioritize them
Public transit can be fast and efficient if it is prioritized. That may require raising the federal tax on gasoline (last raised thirty years ago!!!) and directing that overdue increase to funding alternative transportation options.
One other possibly is due to the lower density in many areas.
For the higher density cities, cost is a major factor. I remember seeing a study or article comparing cost and time to build a subway in the US vs a European country. If I remember correctly, it tooks years longer and cost tens of millions more for a similar route even adjusted for local cost differences.
I would like additonal funding for many things. I would first like to explore efficient use of the money we do have in order to make it all more effective.
Yeah, I took public transportation for a while. It went from a 20 or so minute drive to about an 80 minute commute with 2 trains, a shuttle, and about a mile of walking.
I am wondering why you think a basic income check wouldn’t help anything, because it seems to exactly solve the issue you describe. You sign up for the check (or a lot of the times, get it automatically from the IRS), get it regularly, and buy food with it. Very little bureaucracy compared with food stamps. I agree that one must not call those who rely on the checks entitled and refuse them any further assistance. I think the best thing is to do what we can to help people get back on their feet or at least in a stable situation, and a basic income check would be only one (albeit major) element of that.
I concede that distributing the checks may be difficult to those without stable mailing addresses. Then it may help to for example allow distribution in cash at the local post office.
The pandemic stimulus checks appear to have had a tremendous impact in reducing poverty, see https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-government-program-cu..., at least based on the studies there. I don’t know what the path is for this becoming regular policy, but the proposed child tax credit is projected to greatly decrease child poverty (although it has its own problems, it’s tough to get people to understand it exists and how to use it).
The amount they are proposing for UBI wouldn't even cover rent in some parts of the US. Or it would barely cover rent in some places with little or nothing leftover. Online conversations about UBI frequently include comments to the effect that "If you had UBI, you could move someplace with lower rent."
It amounts to the latest version of putting homeless people on a bus and shipping them elsewhere so they stop being a local problem.
If rent is lower, it is probably because services are less available. If you need those services, such as specialized health care, telling you "Here's a check. Move someplace where it covers rent." is essentially a big fat fuck you.
We have torn down more than a million SROs and largely zoned out of existence the ability to build new Missing Middle Housing in mixed use, walkable neighborhoods. So you not only need to cover a high rent, you also need to have a car which is another huge expense and another big fat fuck you if you simply can't drive for some reason (as is true for me -- I am handicapped and no longer drive).
If we pass UBI, I believe it will only get harder to convince people to build SROs and Missing Middle Housing and walkable neighborhoods. That would be an important part of actually solving things.
We also need universal healthcare coverage in the US. Medical expenses are another huge hardship in the US.
If it were possible to find cheap housing, live without a car and get medical care without it being a hardship, that would make it possible to live on very little and then most people could make their lives work even if they only worked part-time. Currently, if you can't work full-time at a well paid job with benefits, you can't make your life work and we aren't creating enough jobs of that sort. We are increasingly moving to gig work which would be fine if you didn't need a job with good benefits to get medical care and if you could find a cheap place where living without a car really worked and you mostly can't arrange that in the US.
Throwing money at the problem doesn't fix those systemic issues and likely just makes people in power feel like they did something and don't have to feel guilty while they shirk on dealing with resolving the hard problems because actually fixing anything is hard work and painful and no one wants to actually do that if they can find an easy out like "I cut you check. Stop bothering me."
I truly appreciate the insight you gave on zoning, housing, and healthcare. But I feel we are talking past each other, and you are attacking a strawman. I never implied UBI would be a catch all solution to the problem of homelessness. You are attacking the people who treat it as such when I said explicitly it is only one of several remedies.
I simply meant 1) it seems like a good solution for replacing food stamps, and it seems like you dropped this point entirely. I also think 2) it can be helpful in a wider sense. It is certainly easier to give people basic income checks than to rearchitect the entirety of American society away from cars, employer-based healthcare, and suburbia. While I agree with you that we perhaps should be on this more effective path, such a radical reorganization would take decades and massive political will that just isn’t there yet. Not even the New Deal, Great Society, or Eisenhower highway programs reached anything near this scope. UBI is something that has already had a test shot, and the data shows it has had a huge effect in reducing poverty during the pandemic. Unless I’m missing something big, it seems like a good way to start.
Okay, I’m really trying to have a good-faith conversation about this, maybe my questions weren’t super clear. I am very interested in your opinion, as you seem to have experience and also have thought about this a lot (and I think many of us on HN appreciate the unique perspective you have to offer). I am just having a hard time seeing the difference between “reducing barriers to food stamps in the US”, as you said and “giving regular checks to people”. Could you elaborate what this would look like? And how is it possible for checks to “not solve anything” when they have demonstrated effectiveness in decreasing poverty in the real world? Is the pandemic really that different a situation in this case? Maybe your definition of a solution here is different than mine?
EDIT: And of course I also don’t want to burden you with endless questioning. If you have written about this I would be happy to read links. You just have a lot of websites and a lot of content so it is difficult for me to find your writing on this particular topic.
The stimulus checks aren't a test of UBI in part because we were told they were one time relief for an emergency, not an entitlement you can count on forever. People spend money differently if they are told "it's a one-time gift" versus "you can expect this for the rest of your life."
Historically, when you inject money into a system without increasing availability of goods and services, the result is inflation. If you start giving people UBI as a regular thing, the value of those checks will promptly go down due to inflation.
All welfare programs have a long history of failing to keep up with inflation. Even food stamps tend to last only about three weeks out of the month. I see no reason to believe UBI would somehow magically escape this pattern.
Making college loans readily available didn't fix things. It didn't mean that everyone had equal access to a college degree and now ordinary people could readily pursue the career of their dreams. Instead, it resulted in tuition skyrocketing and students having trouble getting a professional job with which to pay off their student loans, so people are waiting tables, putting off marriage, putting off homeownership, putting of having kids, putting off their lives to try to pay their loans.
I see no reason to think UBI would somehow go differently. I read that they tried something somewhere and the result was the landlords just raised rent and it didn't provide real relief for poor people. It just enriched the landlords.
Two-thirds of lottery winners are bankrupt within five years and they are at dramatically increased risk of being murdered, among myriad other terrible fates. The money doesn't solve their problems. They trade poor people problems for rich people problems and they don't have rich people coping skills. It often has very ugly results.
If, instead, you give people access to food and medical care and you make smaller homes in walkable neighborhoods where it's possible to live cheaply, then people can manage their problems and make their choices and find a path forward. People aren't likely to eat ten times what they need just because you are willing to pay for it. People aren't likely to get ten times as many x-rays and surgeries as they need just because you won't bill them for it.
Covering basic needs and guaranteeing you can eat and see a doctor is fundamentally different from cutting a check and telling people to spend it any way they want. It's an important form of social safety net that helps when things go wrong and isn't as readily abusable as cash is whether through innocent mistake, ignorance or even willful irresponsibility.
If you go nuts and spend like crazy and can still eat, well you might survive long enough to learn better. If you piss away all your UBI and then people say "Nope. No food stamps. We ended that program to fund UBI. Go starve." you've got a serious problem and so does society.
