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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

I think the writer made a bad choice in choosing cars. He says that the individual has a right to travel and cars are the most convenient way to travel. Yet does that right mean gangs of workers have to cover over what amounts to thousands of square miles of virgin land? Does that right to travel mean the right to pollute other peoples air and destroy their environment? Does their right to travel include all the innocent deaths that are caused on the roads each day, never mind each year? I don't know about the USA but here, car travel is subsidized out of general taxation, there being a short fall in what is collected directly from car drivers and costs much more in subsidies than train travel which causes less environmental damage and less deaths on the road by a loooooooooooooooooooooong way.

So lets get back to the crucial point. Does someone have the right to travel? An emphatic yes! Does that person have a right to travel in a way that creates an unacceptable negative impact on other people? No!

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

Not that it will happen but if people were made to pay for all the costs and damage their travel creates rather than hiding many costs within the smoke and mirrors of the tax system, many of the environmental problems and much of the impact travelers make on other people will take care of it self. People will then think twice before traveling because of the cost it is to themselves and all without anyone interfering with someone's right to travel.