Found while looking up something else: An interesting piece in Slate.com, “Why do conservatives hate trains so much?”
Writer David Weigel dissects the opposition and notes it’s more libertarian than conservative (other than a delusional George Will line about trains – “…the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.” Whoa, George, you might wanna dial back the paranoia a tad.)
Libertarians, Weigel notes, don’t have a problem with transportation. What they and some Republicans have a problem with is federal spending on transportation. But then, the article goes on to note, “Amtrak passengers pay more of the cost of their transportation than do drivers on the interstate. About 62 percent of Amtrak’s operating expenses, according to the Department of Transportation, comes from fares. According to the Federal Highway Administration, the percentage of highway spending paid for by users—in the form of gas taxes and tolls—is headed below 50 percent.”
Weigel goes on to quote other reasons some conservatives don’t like rail transit, although little of what he reports as their reasons square with the reality that highways are just as expensive, just as prone to go over budget, just as heavily subsidized.
Ultimately, in my opinion (and Weigel gets at some of this) conservatives don’t like rail because liberals do. Some people will do anything in order not to be in the same camp with people whose beliefs they disdain. This is not limited to politics, of course, and seems to be a general part of human nature. Have you ever been around UNC and Duke basketball fans? They make liberal-conservative spats look tame.