RALEIGH – It sounds repetitious, I know: the rail-transit projects now underway or on the drawing boards in Charlotte, the Triangle, and the Triad are wrongheaded. Their stated goals are unachievable, such as shifting significant numbers of travelers from cars to trains or reducing air pollution. And their unstated goals may be achievable but aren’t worthwhile, such as subsidizing how-density “Smart Growth” communities or killing off urban loops.

But sometimes important truths need restatement. The problem with North Carolina’s version of the “rail-vs.-roads” debate is that it occurs so often in the realms of historical theory or visionary abstraction rather than within a context of the actual choices that actual people make everyday here in the 21st century.

I’ve written about the following data, too, but they also deserve another discussion: the number of North Carolinians using transit to get to work hasn’t been growing much, but the number working from home has been. In Charlotte, transit usage went from about 11,000 a day in 1990 to 10,500 in 2000. In Winston-Salem there was also a decline, from 5,700 in 1990 to 5,300. In the Triangle, there was a small rise to 10,500, up from 8,000.

But look at what was going on at the same time in the category of home-based work. The number of those either telecommuting, operating home-based businesses, or living within walking distance of their workplace went from 11,400 to nearly 21,000 in Charlotte, from 9,200 to more than 21,000 in the Triangle, and from 10,300 to 14,900 in Winston-Salem. This is a much more meaningful trend, it seems to me, and is likely to continue as broadband becomes more prevalent, roads more congested, and businesses less likely to favor traditional commuters (by providing office space and parking) over telecommuters (by providing IT and logistical support).

These data should be interpreted carefully, of course. It does seem likely that the opening of rail lines will increase daily transit usage somewhat, though it won’t be a one-for-one gain since some former bus users will ride the train. It is also true that some, though clearly not most, of the growth in home-based work reflects the very growth in residential development in downtowns that transit boosters also say augers well for the new train systems.

My point is that, when deciding how best to deploy billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money during the coming decades, it would seem prudent to put our investments where the people are, and are going, rather than laying down an expensive set of tracks and then trying to convince people to go there. The analogies should be obvious. Do you prefer to paddle upstream or downstream? Do you put a convenience store at a rural crossroads and then try to convince people to build houses nearby?

I don’t mean to suggest that willing entrepreneurs shouldn’t try some rail routes, particularly if there is underutilizing track linking together rational destinations. But these efforts should not be subsidized by other forms of transportation, through the diversion of gas, car, or airport taxation. By all means, let the rail-transit hypothesis be tested – but with taxpayer dollars, it would be best to invest in the public-policy equivalent of a sure thing.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.