Quote:
Originally Posted by geoff's two cents
Sorry, you're still not selling me on this "working class" stuff. If they can afford to drive and insist on doing so when there's perfectly fine transit out there, that's their decision. These people you describe make a lot more money than I do, and I resent having to subsidize a lifestyle characterized by such wasteful extravagance.
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I think you don't quite understand what the working class is. You should brush up on your Marx. The proletariat sell their labor. They do not own the means of production, and do not own the results of their labor. Most of the people in those cars are driving to their jobs, that they have to work, to earn a living, to pay for their house. They generate surplus that the bourgeoisie exploit so that the bourgeoisie can live where they want and pay for it, driving the workers further away from where they work.
So yes, people who have to drive in to work, no matter how much wealth they actually have accumulated, they still don't own the means of production, they don't own their job, they are still the working class. They show up every day to work for a living.
And Last time I checked, this was a free country. People were allowed choice, and people are allowed the persuit of happiness.
I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, I was happy gorwing up in a house, with a yard I could play in with friends, or play street hockey on my near deserted road. I imagine a lot of people out there want to give that happiness to their kids. How is that wrong? How can you punish hard working citizens who are driving the economic engine of downtown Vancouver with their hard work, but who can't even afford to live there.
For the price of a 1 bedroom condo downtown, you can get a full 4 bedroom townhouse in Surrey. For a 2 bedroom Condo downtown, you can get a house with a yard in the burbs.
Life is about choice, and if people choose to be happy by having kids and a yard and neighbours they know for their entire lives, why do you want to deny that to them?
I can live in White Rock (rent at the moment) and drive a car. I can use my car to get to downtown in about an hour, and I can go anywhere else I want on a whim. If I were to take transit downtown, it would take at least an 1:45. If I lived in Langley, the difference between dirving and transit would be 2 to 1. When I lived in Coquitlam, I could drive downtown in 35 minutes, or take transit and be there in 45 minutes while having people sneeze in my face. But it's about choice.
I chose most of the time to ride transit, but it had nothing to do with the environment. Even if I lived downtown, even in the same building I worked in, I would still want to own a car. A car to me is freedom, and for a year I was without that freedom once, and I missed it. I missed driving to parks I've never seen, or not having to struggle carrying 2 shopping bags on the bus. And if I had to budget it, there is no way I could afford a car AND live downtown. So I don't.
I'm not against tolls when they pay for expensive infrastructure that would otherwise be beyond our means to construct. But using tolls or building/removing roads to engineer people's wills and eliminate free choice is beyond socialist, it's a form of fascism.