That's right, it's about time for the US to build a National Metrorail System.
Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, like I'm advocating for an amped-up RPG run-through of Rush's "Red Barchetta." But hear me out and tell me this madness doesn't make sense on some instinctive level.
Outlawing vehicles would mean no more reliance on oil or oil production, from anywhere. No dependence on foreign oil, no hand-wringing over using domestic oil reserves, and no useless debates about whether or not to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Because we would no longer need any of it. You didn't really think a politician was going to figure out a solution to that problem anyway, right?
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| Did anyone have any idea there were so many of these already? (Source: Wikimedia Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0) |
But this gets better: gone are those other pesky and feigned political debates that get shoe-horned into the oil-dependence arguments about alternative energy resources. Because let's face it, all that noise is about the backdoor maneuvering and big-business shell game of who will end up reaping profits among the renewable-energy cartels-in-waiting. Wind farms, low-yield nuclear reactors, plug-and-drive cars, and even the retro-70's debate over grain alcohol would be properly marginalized as things that will only matter among the punditocracy in their self-perpetuating haggle pedestals at CNN and Fox News. And the only people who benefit are the industry insiders who line up for the dole of government contracts, tax-expenditure financing and bankruptcy law bailouts when their big ideas fail to work.
Outlawing vehicles would also mean no more subsidies to the auto industry, and would keep individuals from digging themselves deeper into debt by having to finance a car. Even a used car needs gasoline, insurance, and roughly one fourth of your annual wage. Not a promising move for the young and upwardly mobile who will already have like five million dollars in college loans to repay.
The only people who would lose out on this would be salespersons at the showrooms, because most of the cars sold in the United States aren't manufactured in the United States anymore. And as the people responsible for suckering me into a new car purchase in the first place, I don't really have much piety in my heart for those guys anyway.
I know, I know. All those jobs in the auto industry, at the remaining plants in Detroit and elsewhere, right?
A special corner of job-retraining hell will be reserved for the auto insurance industry mafia who bilk us annually for ever-increasing premiums and ever-diminishing terms of coverage. Make no mistake on this point -- I've had it in for those assholes since I was a teenager, and nothing would give me more pleasure than to see the insurance industry tycoons have to downgrade from their fat-cat gated communities and luxury SUVs to maybe just a couple of Schwinn bicycles hanging on the racks at a condo.
No more vehicles would require a radical redesign and de-urbanization of our cities so that the mom-and-pop corner store, the sole-entrepreneurship, and the good ol' neighborhood become the new communal pathways of familiarity. Walking to the mall, to school, or to a neighbor's house would bring us together in different and more meaningful interactions, such that suddenly it's not so easy to smash a window and steal Grandma's PS4.
But the trickle-down benefits wouldn't stop there. Some naysayers will chortle at this idea and call it Lilliputian. "Who," they will say -- that collective pro-business "they" who constantly agonize over inanities and stay beyond the reach of any comfort a Starbucks latte can provide -- "will ship our Rubbermaid products and cases of Softsoap to the local Target all the way from the distribution centers in Chattanooga?" Yeah, I guess I really am messing with big-time transportation and logistics issues here, huh?
Well then, these supply-line economies would need to be reconfigured to support local suppliers, resulting in a boom of small business investments. And if it isn't locally available, it would be shipped in -- but not on gasoline-consuming trucks. More on that later.
Emergency response systems likewise would be reengineered to support smaller communities, with local police substations and firehouses dotting more and more of this sun-dappled new landscape, and ensuring that our technicians responsible for showing up between 8 and noon for the vital TV cable hookups don't suffer calamity along the way.
Wait, the naysayers will decry. We won't be able to travel such far distances anymore, and thus visit and bond with family and friends as often as we used to. Seriously? In this age of social media, Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat have already won. When was the last time you picked up the phone to talk to someone, and was that someone under 60 years of age? Those apps on our smartphones are the new superhighways of socialization, not voice communications and sure as shit not the open road of Kerouac-era adventuring.
And all that sudden walking and bicycling? Weight problems reduced. Maybe not gone, as we have to account for infirmity, illness, and video game addictions, but surely weight will be reduced somewhere, by some few; perhaps even plenty few. We may even become accustomed to more daily exercise in our lives and can finally compare with the leg muscles, if not the overdeveloped biceps, of any nearby construction workers.
Climate change! There's another box we can check off if nature can take back the highways. The pollution caused by our carbon footprint could stave off climate change within a decade of enforcing the Anti-Motor Law. There would be some pretty upset folks needing a job description update over at the Federal Highway Safety Administration, but it's a public policy cost that could easily be accommodated with a simple name change: the Federal Highway and Metrorail Safety Administration.
There, that wasn't so hard, was it?
Oh sure, we'd need the highways for probably some secret-squirrel military/homeland security stuff and escort vehicles with crew-served weapons (I'm looking at you, Department of Energy). But our highway patrol would literally be a highway patrol chasing down outlaw cars and providing real-world fodder for at least a few more Mad Max sequels.
No more dependence on foreign oil; no more drunk drivers destroying innocent lives; no more fuel emission byproducts polluting our air. We would need to collectively suffer in stoic silence as we would watch Emilio Estevez in Repo Man with wistful regard, but we would eventually find the strength to soldier on.
You wouldn't think a fucking car would be the cause of so many modern ills, from credit ratings to the disappearing ozone layer, but there you have it. I just solved most of the problems we are facing with one broad stroke.
Well shit, where the hell are those Nobel Prize guys when you need them? Okay, I'll settle for a YouTube snippet on TEDTalks. Hey, is this thing on?
It's hard out here for a blogger.
