I am German living in LA. When I lived in Munich and Stuttgart usually travel times with S-Bahn or U-Bahn were pretty competitive and I could get to most places

I am German living in LA. When I lived in Munich and Stuttgart usually travel times with S-Bahn or U-Bahn were pretty competitive and I could get to most places without problems. In LA the network is not dense enough so for a lot of places you have to choose between one hour in the car or 3 hours on 5 different buses. It also doesn't help that the houses are very spread out so distances are much longer compared to Munich for example. But in the end Americans on average don't believe in spending money on public services in a systematic way. They build a light rail here, a high speed train there, at great expense but without any kind of systems thinking. Then they are surprised that the system doesn't get used which confirms the view that public spending is a waste. I have no idea how to get out of that cycle other than a much more wide spread adoption of remote work maybe. Self driving cars will make things just worse because they make even longer commutes possible and sitting in traffic won't be as stressful for the driver.