We All Share the Fridge

 

 Right after college I shared a rowhouse with friends, and to the best of our ability we tried to live in community, including taking turns getting groceries and pitching in to pay for them. Alas, the pull of individualism is strong at that age, as is the scarcity of cash flow, so invariably things would devolve into exceptions and carve-outs: I don’t eat meat so I shouldn’t have to chip in for the chicken breast, I used my own money for the fudge bars I like, and so on. 

This is a bad analogy, because there’s nothing wrong with co-existing in a house but having and paying for one’s own possessions. But I think about this a lot in the context of government provision of transportation, which has some private elements but is largely communal in nature. We are so car-brained in this country that we think that because we pay for our own cars and gas, public transit riders should also pay whatever fare is required to fully support the capital and operating outlays associated with buses, rails, and subway cars.

Of course, the driving analog of public buses, rails, and subway cars is roads, which are built and maintained by the public sector and used by us drivers free of charge. (Even toll roads are heavily subsidized, in terms of the share of capital and maintenance cost that is covered by our tolls.) As with most states, Pennsylvania consists of rural communities and urban communities and everything in between. It is common for rural folks to balk at having to help pay for urban transit they will never use. It is equally true that urban folks have to chip in for rural roads they’ll never use. Like my roommates, we all want to cut our own deals in our own interest, not realizing that there is benefit for all when we do certain things in community.