This misses the point. It doesn’t matter that the average Chinese has fewer cars. They still need cars, which means public transportation can’t eliminate the pr

This misses the point. It doesn’t matter that the average Chinese has fewer cars. They still need cars, which means public transportation can’t eliminate the problem. Eliminate, no -- but alleviate, definitely. Fewer cars on the roads means safer roads. By offering viable public transportation it does not really matter if everyone has or needs a car -- people will choose to use it less on average. Finland has a comparable number of vehicles per capita to the US and is a sparsely populated country where large portions of the population need cars to get where they need to go. Yet Finland has 5 traffic-related deaths per 100,000 motor vehicles per year while USA has 16.5 -- over three times as many. I would wager this is both because of better road quality with safety built in (like pedestrian safety features and roundabouts, etc.) as well as less use of those vehicles thanks to functional public transport.