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> It takes a serious amount of hubris to look at the world and think that we can just wave a magic wand and make public transit work It takes a serious amount

> It takes a serious amount of hubris to look at the world and think that we can just wave a magic wand and make public transit work It takes a serious amount of hubris to look at the world and not See the fact that most people never had a car and never will. Do you realise that poor people all over the world rely on public transport to survive? There are 190 countries in the world. United states has 6th highest car ownership per person. 139 countries that Less Than Half cars per person that US does. US has 0.9 cars PP, Israel has 0.4, China 0.2 India 0.06 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_... Yes, it is true that most of Europe has > 0.5 cars PP. So in a way it's a measure of wealth. More Accurate way of examining this issue, it distance driven per year per person, and I was not able to find such statistics.

rootusrootus 4y ago
> Do you realise that poor people all over the world rely on public transport to survive? I will go out on a limb here and suggest most of them actually rely on their feet. Bicycle if they can afford it. Then a motorcycle as income permits. And as soon as their lifestyle supports it, a car. The problem with public transit as a solution is that we've had a long time to prove that out. The US had better public transit in many cities ~100 years ago than today. Why did the car dominate? I don't buy into conspiracy theories. People buy, on average, whatever best meets their needs. Make the best public transit in the world today universally available, and a huge number of people will still choose cars because they are more useful. Note that the only places in which public transit dominates are places so dense that the pain of public transit is less than the pain of making a car work. This does not describe more than perhaps three cities in the United States (and only in their downtown cores) and it never will unless we put an artificial cap on creating new cities.
- ElectricalUnion 4y ago
  > Note that the only places in which public transit dominates are places so dense that the pain of public transit is less than the pain of making a car work. This does not describe more than perhaps three cities in the United States (and only in their downtown cores) and it never will unless we put an artificial cap on creating new cities. The "artifical cap against public transit" exists, enacting a low density urban sprawl model on most cities, preventing a alternative from cars from working.

rootusrootus 4y ago

> Do you realise that poor people all over the world rely on public transport to survive? I will go out on a limb here and suggest most of them actually rely on their feet. Bicycle if they can afford it. Then a motorcycle as income permits. And as soon as their lifestyle supports it, a car. The problem with public transit as a solution is that we've had a long time to prove that out. The US had better public transit in many cities ~100 years ago than today. Why did the car dominate? I don't buy into conspiracy theories. People buy, on average, whatever best meets their needs. Make the best public transit in the world today universally available, and a huge number of people will still choose cars because they are more useful. Note that the only places in which public transit dominates are places so dense that the pain of public transit is less than the pain of making a car work. This does not describe more than perhaps three cities in the United States (and only in their downtown cores) and it never will unless we put an artificial cap on creating new cities.

ElectricalUnion 4y ago
> Note that the only places in which public transit dominates are places so dense that the pain of public transit is less than the pain of making a car work. This does not describe more than perhaps three cities in the United States (and only in their downtown cores) and it never will unless we put an artificial cap on creating new cities. The "artifical cap against public transit" exists, enacting a low density urban sprawl model on most cities, preventing a alternative from cars from working.