[srndsnd]

If you are living in a place that forces you into car ownership as a means of transportation, then you are receiving a subsidy in the form of the infrastructure that enables car dependent city planning. You're also compelled to own a car, which is enormously expensive, getting even more expensive, and is probably the thing you do on a regular basis which is most likely to kill you. Sprawl is expensive, and so is car ownership.

[smileysteve]

Upvote; People complain about a congestion tax -- or traffic -- or bad roads. But they don't think about policy when when a car costs ~30% of a median salary, when insurance is "required", expensive (and part is because some choose not to afford insurance while driving a car). Beyond that car / driving enforcement is a drain on police preventing more dangerous crime, a top entry point of harassment and escalation by police, a drain on District Attorneys and the courts from enforcing other crime.

[toast0]

> If you are living in a place that forces you into car ownership as a means of transportation, then you are receiving a subsidy in the form of the infrastructure that enables car dependent city planning.

It costs more to build a road that supports a bus than it does to build a road that only supports cars. OTOH, the roads also need to support fire engines, so there's that. Certainly stores devote more real estate to parking than they would if I didn't live in a car dependent infrastructure, but I'm paying for that in some way or another.

Otherwise, what infrastructure do you think I'm getting subsidized? I don't have muni water or sewer, and the power and telco utilities certainly pass along their costs to me.

[ryan_lane]

> Otherwise, what infrastructure do you think I'm getting subsidized?

The city you drive into is subsidizing your ability to drive into the city, the space to park in the city (which could be used for more housing), paying the cost of your emissions and noise, so that you can live a cheaper life in an area that's generally more expensive to sustain per-capita.

> I don't have muni water or sewer, and the power and telco utilities certainly pass along their costs to me.

The power and telcos generally do not pass these costs onto you. The costs are spread across the entire user-base, and it's more expensive to support you because it's more infrastructure for less people. Streets/roads/highways are also generally subsidized.

Suburbs and extreme white-flight areas are heavily subsidized by cities, especially if you're commuting into them for work. If the costs of sustaining your living situation were truly passed onto you, you wouldn't be able to afford to live there.

[acdha]

> It costs more to build a road that supports a bus than it does to build a road that only supports cars.

This isn’t true and it’s also missing a bigger point: you need many more lanes for cars than buses. That space is not providing economic value and has to be subsidized using general fund revenue when it could be used by businesses or for housing.

[Spivak]

What are you talking about? The roads in my city are paid for my taxes remitted to the city. I guess you could call that a subsidy but that's also just known as being paid for by taxes. And if you're in an area where everyone needs a car to get around then there's no argument that drivers are mooching off the tax revenue of non-drivers. I swear people are so salty about roads when they don't drive but nobody complains about public schools when they went to private.

Owning a car isn't enormously expensive except in online discussions where people quote the MSRP of $year+1 models and act like folks making minimum wage are actually paying that. My primary car is a 2012 Honda Fit that was $6000 when I bought it at 30k miles and is now pushing 120k. I bought it in cash, but the monthly payment with insurance would have been 15% of my rent.

[programjames]

I'd recommend watching this video by "Not Just Bikes": [Suburbia is Subsidized: Here's the Math](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI).

The city also has to pay for utility lines, which are much more expensive in suburban sprawl than the urban center. Also, zoning laws make it more expensive to build apartments, so you really only get single-family houses in the suburbs and apartments in the inner city. If you use property taxes to pay for infrastructure, the inner-city residents (living in apartments, and likely poorer) are paying most of the money for infrastructure they never use.

[verall]

Most Americans do not drive solely on city/town roads, we rather frequently take highways and interstates which are federally subsidized - not mostly paid for by city taxes.

You or your city may be exceptions, you might drive only on city roads, but the parent comment's point about subsidies is broadly correct.