If you want to help the poor, then rescue our rail system from its status as “a system that would shame Bulgaria,” demand that bikes get a higher priority than cars, and insist that transportation planners and officials provide a system that permits anyone inside an urban growth boundary to live without need of car ownership.

Fuel costs are primarily the concern of the wealthy, because they pay very little for the other aspects of ownership of cars; they buy and hold cars, obtained for cash, through tax-deductible home equity loans, or at low/good credit interest rates. They pay the lowest rates for auto insurance, and can afford the highest deductibles so their rates are further lowered. When the insurance industry uses credit scores to set auto rates, they are rewarded yet again.

Meanwhile, the poor operate in a world of HUGE predatory “EZ credit” and “risk pool” insurance industries that prey on them and their need for transportation in our system dominated by and totally subservient to the wishes of the carburban elites.

Even an old beater that only gets 15 mpg only costs 20 cents per mile for fuel, a small part of the cost of ownership when you consider the cost of credit for the poor and the costs of insurance and repairs ( the total cost to the poor can easily approach or even exceed $1/mile because they are trapped in overpriced cars that often won’t last more than a year or two). These people don’t need cheaper fuel—gas is the one cost that varies in proportion to use and doesn’t come with credit charges. The poor need workable alternatives to the car, period.