You can tell that they haven't even spent any real time in Manhattan, right here in the US! No rest of the world is even necessary.

All of the "positives" of individual personal transportation quickly turn into negatives when everyone else is simultaneously trying to avail themselves of them in a dense, congested city. Then you realize that trying to have a car in the middle of a big city is more hassle than it's worth, and that walking, biking, public transit, and ubiquitous cabs actually work quite well, way better than individual cars could ever work in such conditions.

So yes, we've got suburban Americans who can't even conceptualize what life is like in our biggest city, despite it being a constant subject in pop culture.

> trying to have a car in the middle of a big city is more hassle than it's worth

I've lived in Chicago, and came to the same conclusion. I like having a car so that's one of the reasons I don't live there anymore.

But most of the US is not big cities. Yet even in modest sized towns you see people advocating for public transit and bike lanes, etc. where they will never be used enough to justify the taxpayer expense.

I disagree with you on justifying the public expense. Bike lanes increase safety, both for cyclists and pedestrians. One preventable death is worth many millions of dollars. Bike lanes are incredibly cheap when all externalities are factored in.

EDIT: Also, we spend far, far more money on our road infrastructure than on all public transit combined. You are looking at the cost of public transit but assuming that roads were/are free. They are not. Taking steps towards equalizing funding levels between the two would go a great ways towards making public transit better while remaining revenue neutral.

I'm not sure why you both conclude that people are unaware that public transportation works well in some cities and countries. I'm aware of that, but it's not relevant to my own ability to travel if I don't live in one of those areas. Could I move? Sure, but if everyone who complains about traffic or public transportation moved to Manhattan I suspect Manhattan's infrastructure would no longer perform so well.

That may be true, but there are also a lot of sweeping generalizations about how the US is totally different from every other developed country when it comes to car ownership.

In fact, the percentage of households that own cars in the US is not that different from either other wealthy Western democracies, Japan, or South Korea. (China and Russia are both much lower.)

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/16/car-bike-or-...

A more relevant metric would be how often the car is used: there's a difference between having a family car you use for weekend trips and occasional trip to Costco, and having to drive your kids to school every morning.

And limiting our measurements to cities. Otherwise it becomes a measurement of "who has more rural and suburban areas" instead of "who uses more public transit in urban areas".