You answer is "sin" taxes, and you see no way people would want to spend on a light rail project. But why would they vote themselves into a sin tax then? How is it different. Wouldn't building of a light rail in a town or region come with an increase in taxes anyway for a good number of years? Is that a "sin" tax?
> I honestly thing the best way to do it is build a better bus
A bus is a bus. Unless the wheels are falling off. The problem is not the bus, is how often does the bus come. If sell my car, and the bus only comes in the weekdays, ok, now I have to get taxi to grocery shop on the weekends. It would dictate when I have to leave from work because I might miss the last one.
The other problem is social. This is hard to say but in many cities, public transportation is often used by those that cannot drive, that unfortunately includes crazy people. You might not otherwise encounter them but you will on public transportation. In some cities it is a small nuisance. In some it happens often because almost everyone who is capable of driving is driving or getting rides. That bus could have gold plates handles and it could even be free, and a lot of people will still opt for driving.
> Firstly, because the pain is felt by everyone.
Yes. It can't be just artificially and locally manufactured pain -- sin taxes. Why would they ever vote for that? Why would a small quiet suburb of some major city just decide to vote to punish themselves for driving? But the pain has to already be there -- horrible traffic. If they start sitting in traffic for 2 hours every day, they might start thinking, hmm, we've tried HOV-3 lanes and even then it is not quite doing it? Maybe a light rail is better. Or more buses.
We are talking about cities. There should not be a last bus. They should run 24 hours/day.
> now I have to get taxi to grocery shop on the weekends
In a real city, you can usually walk or at the very least, cycle to your grocery store. If you can't then you do not actually live in an urban environment.
> public transportation is often used by those that cannot drive, that unfortunately includes crazy people.
Right, again i'm talking about creating a system of urbanism in major cities. I'm not talking about Houston or San Diego. I'm talking about cities like Amsterdam, Edinburgh, or Stockholm. If taking a bus is slower than taking your car at rush hour, you'd have to be crazy to take the bus. If you build a good BRT system that is faster than using a car, people will use it. Not just crazy people.
>Why would they ever vote for that? Why would a small quiet suburb of some major city just decide to vote to punish themselves for driving?
We are talking about cities like Philly, and people that live in cities like Philly, we are not talking about some exurb that uses subsidized parking in major cities to facilitate their commute.
Why would they vote for that? Easy, because it pits competing interests together so that there is no major bloc that forces a candidate to change. Let's say you add a sin tax. Those that can afford it would benefit, because there would be less traffic on the road, and those who don't own cars would benefit because it would improve the public transit infrastructure. The slowly increasing it while slowly increasing the public infrastructure would never force a major bloc into political action. Something that definitely would happen if you dramatically reduce the quality of living for 1/6 to 1/4 of a city's population by trying to dramatically ramp up some type of subway system and digging up people's front lawn for 18 months, so that they can have access to a subway in 6 years.
In a real city, you can usually walk or at the very least, cycle to your grocery store.
Gotta love that goalpost shifting. Have you considered that there are plenty of cities here in the US (real or not, by your standards) where that's not true?
We are talking about cities like Philly, and people that live in cities like Philly, we are not talking about some exurb that uses subsidized parking in major cities to facilitate their commute.
The problem is that without the commuters coming in, the urban core dies. This is exactly what happened in Detroit. Now, it's possible that if you already have an excellent transit system and a vibrant urban core (like New York, for example), you can impose congestion charges and get away with it, because the core of the city is attractive enough for people to continue to want to go there and the public transit system is robust enough to carry them. But that's not the case in Philadelphia. For older "rust belt" cities, which are already having issues with people moving away to sunnier, warmer southern cities with lower taxes and bigger roads, making the core of the city even more inaccessible isn't a winning strategy.
> I honestly thing the best way to do it is build a better bus
A bus is a bus. Unless the wheels are falling off. The problem is not the bus, is how often does the bus come. If sell my car, and the bus only comes in the weekdays, ok, now I have to get taxi to grocery shop on the weekends. It would dictate when I have to leave from work because I might miss the last one.
The other problem is social. This is hard to say but in many cities, public transportation is often used by those that cannot drive, that unfortunately includes crazy people. You might not otherwise encounter them but you will on public transportation. In some cities it is a small nuisance. In some it happens often because almost everyone who is capable of driving is driving or getting rides. That bus could have gold plates handles and it could even be free, and a lot of people will still opt for driving.
> Firstly, because the pain is felt by everyone.
Yes. It can't be just artificially and locally manufactured pain -- sin taxes. Why would they ever vote for that? Why would a small quiet suburb of some major city just decide to vote to punish themselves for driving? But the pain has to already be there -- horrible traffic. If they start sitting in traffic for 2 hours every day, they might start thinking, hmm, we've tried HOV-3 lanes and even then it is not quite doing it? Maybe a light rail is better. Or more buses.