Any time you take something from “the government,” whoever that is, you are taking something, somewhere. Highways are the most space-consuming form of transportation. A single cloverleaf intersection can take 200-300 acres. That isn’t “independent.” Someone had to buy that land, build that highway, and keep it maintained. The same applies to local streets, and all the various services, such as street lighting, plowing, sanding, cleaning, and so on.

Transit permits people to be “independent” of a great many other things. Car payments, gasoline bills, insurance costs, time spent in jams, pollution, and so on. The drivers who operate the transit systems (and some future systems in place in some areas don’t even have them) do deserve a proper compensation in light of the services they provide.

To return to the situation in France, do recall that France is much smaller and more integrated functionally than the US. What they are striking about is early retirement. That probably is out of control, as is the amount of paid time off that they enjoy (virtually every holy day is a holiday). But it’s not realistic to change the rules for those who have been working under these expectations for decades. Maybe to revise, incrementally, the rules of engagement for future employees, but retroactively, no.

However, the advantage of highways in this regard is that these public servants are generally not allowed to strike. But this is an issue of public policy. (Note: I recognize that the New York strike was illegal in this regard and the union got heavily penalized for that–largely the reason that such an incident is so rare in New York.)

I will also point out that in general, regardless of how independent people want to be, they cannot escape the fact that a transportation system is inherently composed of interdependencies, meaning that even if drivers feel “independent” in their cars, they are nonetheless still dependent on the transit system to shoulder a significant portion of the travel capacity. When the transit system shuts down, cars do not remain unaffected (one of the reasons public outcry against them tends to be large).

I always point out to transit advocates that people who drive their own cars are dependent on the government only to provide them with the streets and highways. Where as transit riders are dependent on the government to provide the streets, the vehicle, and the driver.

People want to be independent as possible (especially from the government) and they view relying on mass transit as being antithetical to this idea.