The verdict is in on mass transit, and just because it isn’t pretty doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look at it. The truth is, we’ve been running this bus and train and boat experiment for a century, and the obvious, desired, successful, surviving form of transportation is the privately-owned automobile.

Don’t get me wrong. I wanted it to be otherwise. I pride myself on fair-mindedness but I think I’d have cooked the evidence in favor of public transportation, a little, if it would have made a difference. But it wasn’t even close.

I used to argue that subway systems would operate at less of a deficit if they didn’t have fares; they could eliminate all those ticket machines and turnstiles and guards. People looked at me like I was a talking horse. I’d wax emphatic about charging those in cars the true cost of driving and making the mass transit free, or reserving HOV lanes for buses only, or designing the transit vehicles to be more luxurious than the cars, and listeners gazed at me with bemused indulgence.

“In my next life, maybe,” they might think, but meanwhile they need their cars for their commutes and their errands, and they sometimes take a drive alone to relax, and they’re contemplating a convertible for the car after this.

It’s not that the public is recalcitrant. Look at the shift in attitude toward smoking, and the tremendous strides we’ve taken against racism.

Clearly, it’s that people need to drive, alone, to be happy.

So let’s stop all this faking. Let’s put our money where our hearts are, and bring back cheap gasoline. Let’s reinvent cruising and the road trip and tail fins and white walls and all the things that made America great.

As for who will pay for it, I say it’s time to stop subsidizing alternative forms of transportation. Let bus and train tickets rise to what they must be, in order to pay for their systems. And start charging the pedestrians.

That’s right. The group that uses the roads and streets without paying a dime for them. The folks who demand curb cuts for strollers and wheelchairs but charge the job to property owners. The people who impede the flow of traffic with their crosswalks and other rights-of-way.

Walkers have gotten a free ride long enough. They’re more favored than Native Americans.

Buses should be confined to the far right lane and should yield to any car. There’s no particular reason to make them plush; most passengers won’t be in them for long.

Pedestrians should be required to remit annual registration fees, maintain insurance, and pay tolls. This is especially true when you consider that study after study shows the injury rate is higher for pedestrians than for drivers

In fact, in light of the demonstrated tendency for people to break more easily than automobiles, pedestrians should be required to wear protective gear. A portion of the sales of such equipment could go to fund the roads. I’m envisioning padded bumper-belts. At the least, a helmet and a flag should be law.

Other pedestrian accouterments should be strictly regulated. Cellphone use distracts the walker, and those little carts increase their dimensions to the point where it’s sometimes traffic-impeding to wait for them and their wheels to cross.

I won’t continue with suggestions for specific laws, because the process should be consensual, natural, and democratic. It’s time for our society to begin the dialogue that will permit us to thrive. Our goal above all should be to keep the traffic moving, for therein lies our economic redemption.