zlacker

>>amathe+(OP)
It’s odd to me that these anti-car polemics never talk about why Americans don’t want to ride public transit, while people in most other countries have zero issues adopting it wholesale. Instead they just make it into a simplistic, moralistic crusade about how the suburban car owners are evil people, told from the perspective of a righteous city-dweller.

Here’s a better theory: because American public transit is, when compared with the alternatives, not safe, not clean, and not convenient. Take LA, probably the most car-dependent big city in America. Riding the bus or subway in LA is not an enjoyable experience. Nor is it enjoyable to walk around the areas where the stops are. If I were trying to get more people to use public transit, I’d start by making the stations and buses/subways beautiful, clean, safe places that are just nice urban places to hang out in. There’s no need to make it a moral crusade; just offer a better product and more people will use it.

>>keifer+Vc
It’s odd to me that these anti-car polemics never talk about why Americans don’t want to ride public transit

Yes they do. US public transit is terrible and various groups like Strong Towns describe this and explain why. Things like the way buses wind-up the first thing cut in budget crises etc are important parts of the barrier to ending a car-based urbanism.

See a multitude of article here: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/category/Public+Transit

>>joe_th+Cn1
It's a self reinforcing cycle. Public transit sucks, ergo it is cut, it becomes worse is less useful, ridership declines, nobody is riding it, defunded more - rinse wash repeat. See transit is horrible... Seeing well done public transit is eye opening. We also don't consider sometimes that driving is terrible too in cities. 30 minutes to get down an on ramp, 30 more to go across a bridge. At some point bad public transit and grid locked cities is just.. dystopian. Fundamentally a problem of scale, personal cars just can't move many millions in and out of a city, the math of how much time and space that requires doesn't work.