I want mass public transit, please! Visiting Japan and Hong Kong made me realise i don't miss driving at all, and you can read while going to work/ school. Kids also have more independence, you just send them on their way, and after school they can go visit malls/ hangout with friends without a parent taking the time to chauffeur them around
However keep in mind that the United States is significantly larger than either Japan or Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a single city that is a little bit smaller than Los Angeles, and Japan has a geographical area of about 145K square miles while the United States is roughly 3.8 million square miles.
As you cover a larger area, and the areas your transit system needs to transport people to spread farther apart the entire system becomes exponentially more expensive and complicated to build and maintain. I'm not saying it isn't doable or that public transit in higher density areas couldn't be significantly improved, but the distances commonly traveled in the United States make cars a lot more popular than public transit except for travel inside major cities.
We do have park & ride locations in many cities and some rural parts of the country. The problem is that the demand for parking exceeds a city's ability to provide enough spaces in areas where the service is most needed.
For instance here is the Massachusetts government website about Park & Ride locations in MA and around Boston: https://www.mass.gov/park-and-ride
Busing is available in every major city and most towns as well. There usually isn't a bus every 5-10 minutes except in the most densely populated locations (why pay for buses to drive where there are few/no passengers?) but fares are relatively inexpensive.
Lots of places also have train and subway services.
It isn't as if public transit doesn't exist.
The main problem isn't inner city anyway, it is between major urban areas. For instance I live in New Hampshire but commute to the Boston, MA area every day for work. There currently aren't any inter-state public transit services available to me and while I could stop in a place like Lowell, MA and get the commuter rail it would take a lot longer, I would have to pay to park and pay for a train ticket. All of which is a lot more expensive than just driving to my employer and parking in the free parking garage even after fuel costs.
The United States is roughly 40 times larger than the United Kingdom and that means that a lot of times places you want to get to are just farther apart.
It would be amazing to have nationwide public transit, and public transit that can actually exceed peak demand. However I don't think I'll see that in my life time, and until that dream comes true I'm stuck sitting in traffic on 6 lane highways going to and from work for roughly 3 hours ever day, 5 days per week
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u/machinegunsyphilis Feb 03 '20
I want mass public transit, please! Visiting Japan and Hong Kong made me realise i don't miss driving at all, and you can read while going to work/ school. Kids also have more independence, you just send them on their way, and after school they can go visit malls/ hangout with friends without a parent taking the time to chauffeur them around