Conservatives and Mass Transit: All Aboard?

From Politics Daily;

Effete liberals love mass transit and red-blooded American conservatives disdain it, right?
That's the stereotype, all right. Libs love their commuter trains, while we conservatives dig our pickup trucks. There's surely something to those images, but a new book titled, "Moving Minds; Conservatives and Public Transportation," seeks to lead some 21st century conservatives to rethink their view of riding the subway.

This debate comes at a time when conservatives stand accused of failing to embrace new ideas (in fact, the authors would argue this is really the renewing of an old idea, but you get the point.) Clearly, a conservative arguing in favor of mass transit dispels the notion that conservatives aren't receptive to exploring new solutions to the nation's ongoing problems. Both sides are guilty of taking stances on issues -- and sticking with them -- regardless of the emergence of new facts or changing priorities. It's all too uncommon to find an adherent of one political philosophy championing an issue generally identified as "belonging" to the other team. For this reason, if nothing else, the authors of this book deserve attention, even praise.

This is not some new fad to them, either. While "Moving Minds" was recently published, it is actually the collection of eight separate transportation studies conducted and published by conservatives Paul Weyrich and William S. Lind between 1997 and 2009. Weyrich, who passed away in late 2008, was co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, and one of the most significant conservative activists and commentators of modern times. Interestingly, his first foray into politics came as a teenager when he attempted to save the famous North Shore Line through his hometown of Racine, Wisc.

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