They are taking away our open highways

[ancianita]

218. Infrastructure has never been free. How much of it can realistically be supported by both feds and

state is a major discussion that requires numbers.

If we take more time to read the Transportation Bill, maybe we can learn to balance what we need with fear that someone is taking it away from us.

I highly recommend that you also read Wendell Berry's "The Unsettling of America" to get a history of how we have sold ourselves out to an old narrative that being "on the move" means progress. And that often we think of mobility as a freedom inherent in the rest of the narrative of business, wealth acquisition and prestige. Even if you just read the first and last chapters.

Of course we built these highways when we were a richer, more frugal nation. But these highways were never part of The Commons -- instead, highways cut across farms, towns, grazing land, etc. -- and perhaps we've come to think of highways as the commons. But they never were. They were only sold as a "hallmark and symbol of American liberty" by car companies on TV. And we built a mobile culture from all that. Driving has always been legally just a privilege. Roads were always primarily for interstate commerce and the military.

Now transportation methods have divided themselves by class -- the rich flying everywhere, or being driven to anywhere you yourself have to drive -- and they're just not feeling your attachment to road mobility; neither are they paying the taxes they paid under Eisenhower. If you just want to get around, we will find ways to do on-the-ground workarounds. If you think of this as a commercial conquest which can feel more final than military conquest, I can sympathize. But we do have to keep a clearer historical understanding of what highways have been for, not just what they mean to us. BTW, I've taken over 30 cross country road trips in my life, so I really do sympathize.

If we can make litmus test lists of issues for pledges from would-be Democratic leaders, perhaps this toll road issue should be on them.