Cars changed the world. There's not really any going back from that. It works in places where the urban population is over 90% (like Japan) but not when urban population is substantially lower (like the US). How would the rural population get to the bus/train station? My grandma's house is half an hour by car to the nearest freeway, how long would she have to walk to get to public transport?
Public transport only works inside of cities, and there's a lot of infrastructure already built to support sprawling metropolitan areas where everyone has 1/4 acre of land surrounding their detached home. There's not a lot of push to tear all that up and forcibly relocate the residents to inner-city apartments.
You know the benefit of electric, self-driving cars, though? An intelligent car isn't going to run you over on your bike. Be happy about that.
I think you can go even further. Public transit is tough to do well in cities that don't have a certain level of density. They're building subways in LA, but the city just isn't designed for it, patterns of movement are too dynamic, and too much of the city is composed of single-family homes so the last-mile problem is huge. It can only ever have a limited impact at an huge cost. They would be much better off with congestion pricing and dedicated bus lanes on the highways and arterial roads, transitioning these to self-driving when it becomes possible.
Three of the best public transit systems in the world are Berlin, Tokyo, and New York, which are both amongst the densest large cities in the world (Berlin is almost exclusively 5 story apartment buildings). The Berlin subway is largely self-supporting without public subsidy, Tokyo's system is composed of two competing but interoperable systems, the larger of which is privately run, and New York's system was privately run until 1940. The lifestyle, weather, and zoning of the cities where it works kickstarted the construction, and there exists enough demand that they would have great public transit systems even without government initiative.
The number of people in America who live half an hour from the nearest freeway is so small as to be irrelevant. Nobody is suggesting that 0% of trips be taken by car. It's fine if your grandmother drives around. It does not matter in the big picture.
What matters is if the 82% of Americans who live in cities are forced to crawl through sprawling car-choked landscapes, or are able to live in a walkable environment. High reliance on cars prevents the latter.
By the way you were wrong about that Japan vs US comparison as well. USA has a higher proportion of urban residents than does Japan. And they have plenty of trains in Japan.
82% of Americans do not live in cities. Rather, they live in areas classified as urban (which really means not rural) by the census bureau. Here's the definition: "To qualify as an urban area, the territory identified according to criteria must encompass at least 2,500 people, at least 1,500 of which reside outside institutional group quarters."
Yes, I'm guessing that many of those urban areas are within half an hour of a freeway--though this may be less true in the West. But the vast majority of those 82% don't live in places that are remotely walkable.
Oh no, you're wrong. Public transport literally CANNOT work... after all, it didn't work in the USA. It's fundamentally impractical, and countries that make it work are performing magic.
/s obviously.
God I hate the responses on threads like this that insist on the impracticality of public transport worldwide because it doesn't work in the US. It's like mass Stockholm Syndrome or something!
Okay you can just stop that shit right now. No one said it's unfeasible everywhere just because it's unfeasible in the US. If you're sick of hearing about the US, I'm sick of every time someone says something about the US, someone else has to chime in and say "yeah but you're wrong because there are other countries". What you're arguing right now is that cars shouldn't exist in the US because public transport works somewhere else. Can you find the hypocrisy there?
Notice how I even said "it works in places like Japan"? Notice that? See it? Good. Now quit acting like like you're being oppressed every time someone mentions the US. Yes, the world is a big place, but guess what? The US exists and a lot of people live there. Deal with it.
Jesus christ it's like I insulted your mother or something.
Public transport only works inside of cities, and there's a lot of infrastructure already built to support sprawling metropolitan areas where everyone has 1/4 acre of land surrounding their detached home. There's not a lot of push to tear all that up and forcibly relocate the residents to inner-city apartments.
You know the benefit of electric, self-driving cars, though? An intelligent car isn't going to run you over on your bike. Be happy about that.