"most of the rest of the developed world has quite wonderful subways and trains. They are clean, efficient, cheap, run on time, have as many as 20 or even 25 tr

"most of the rest of the developed world has quite wonderful subways and trains. They are clean, efficient, cheap, run on time, have as many as 20 or even 25 trains an hour...." We used to have a lot of railroads in the US. Then the automobile came along, which started them going downhill, but there were still lots of them ... then the interstate freeway system was built (with planning help from the CEO of General Motors), and the railroad system couldn't compete for passengers. Passenger service was mostly gone 50 years ago. But, you ask, did noone plan for the future? Well ... this is the U.S. We only build it well once, then we argue about who should keep it repaired. Which is why the majority of our bridges are in a dangerous state.