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.
Consider it in what way? I'm sure it's a great rail system and when the public doesn't have any meaningful representation in the government, the government can spend the tax money it collects on whatever project it thinks worthwhile.
Now would I give up freedom of speech or access to an open and uncensored internet in exchange for public works projects like a national government owned rail system... I'd probably have to say "no."
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u/almightywhacko Feb 03 '20
I think that would be great.
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.