There are a lot of practical challenges here because this country was already built for cars as the universal form of transport.

Over the last 50 years American exceptionalism has morphed from: "We are the greatest country on earth, unique in our ability to achieve." to "We are the most special snowflake country in the world, unique in our inability to improve healthcare, public infrastructure, or reduce deaths by firearms." It's really quite sad, I hope you guys get our of your rut soon.

Considering actual firearm violence has actually shrunk a lot in recent decades, I feel you have just a hint of bias based on a political agenda there.

It's shrunk a lot relative to the US peak [1]. Relative to other western powers it's still in a league of its own [2]. I think your comment is more indicative of a political agenda than mine.

And for the record, if the United States as a society decides that gun ownership is important enough to let the mass shootings continue that's OK with me. What bugs me more is the perennial argument that gun control wouldn't solve anything or that it's impossible for the US to address its gun violence problem even if it wanted to.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/upshot/compare-these-gun-...

There is no USA (only Zuul). The USA is a country of states each with various characters, economic sizes and problems (Miami and Minneapolis are vastly different environments).

No one holds Germany responsible for EU partner Croatia's outcomes, yet USA wide outcomes are - despite massive local variations. In a lot of areas of US policy (excluding defence) local budgets will dictate results much more than federal ones.

That's the real challenge for the USA, how to cope with inequality that is as much a factor of geography as politics.

As someone who has grown up in the South, and who has visited San Francisco, Philadelphia, DC, NYC, Boston and other places, I agree public transport is amazing, and I wish cities in the South could pull it off. I also recognize it's incredibly difficult, and expensive, to do so. And even if we had the money and ability to build rail along freeway lines, and build stops at popular social and residential hubs, how do people get to the rail station? Vehicle. And for many people, the question will then be, "Why drive to the station, wait 15 minutes, take a train with multiple stops, etc. when I can just drive?"

At which point you talk about incentives against driving, at which point you piss off millions of people, and potentially punish those who legitimately couldn't use rail due to work or scheduling circumstances.

You're really blowing off something incredibly difficult, more difficult (politically and financially) than putting someone on the moon. And your snark isn't even conceptually consistent; we thought we were a snowflake in the 60s, we just really were one of the greatest countries in the world. Firearm issues are there but over hyped/more complex than you want to admit, and if anything, we really should let states take the reins at healthcare, because it'd be a lot easier for regional governments to pull something off and get the ball rolling than to constantly fight at our crippled-by-two-national-parties Congress.

> You're really blowing off something incredibly difficult, more difficult (politically and financially) than putting someone on the moon.

You're probably right, but I also think that the main roadblocks are political, not financial. The US has one of the highest GDP/capita in the world but consistently fails to apply this economic power to helping its own citizens or does so in extremely wasteful ways like creating jobs through military spending.

Edit: Also public infrastructure isn't just transport. There are cities in the US that do not have safe drinking water. It's shocking.

> And even if we had the money and ability to build rail along freeway lines, and build stops at popular social and residential hubs, how do people get to the rail station?

In places that have good rail systems, most people get to the rail station by walking. In the other places, it is usually because they have disallowed dense construction near transit stations through zoning.

Isn't part of the problem that the appeal of the south is different to the north? SF and NYC are very different climates to New Orleans, with very different amounts of living space per person. You can either have a lot of living space, or a lot of good public transit options, but not really both.

Hyperloop, if it isn't just hype, is a step in the right direction.

Hyperloop is another private service for the wealthy. It won't help connect communities like locally-owned public transit does.

Electricity was also once only for the wealthy.

Cars also.

Boo hoo. Do you think Medieval cities like those in Europe were built for public transport as well?

I think it fits better with public transit. They are much more walkable and people scale.

> Boo hoo. Do you think Medieval cities like those in Europe were built for public transport as well?

That’s actually a pretty great point. They also weren’t devised for internet, flight, or dna sequencing. Time to roll those back as well.

They certainly weren't built for widespread individual use of automobiles.

There was a company in Mexico that tried to do that ( https://angel.co/caravana ). Unfortunately, the government still won't let it be.

If You think Taxi's are a mafia, the public transport (bus) system in Mexico is ten times as dirty and corrupt. It is a real shame.

Working is a relative term here in France for public transport. This week a tree fell on a railway deserving the St-Lazare train station in Paris, reducing the service to three train one a line used by tens of thousands of people daily. Still I appreciate having a good network here in Paris (and in most of France).

I would say that public transportation doesn't always work, here or elsewhere.

Subways and buses usually have schedules that don't always line up with when you happen to need it. Also, there is a mental tax in having to navigate it.

For instance, I really have a hard time reading subway/train maps and schedules, and God forbid I need to connect to a different line during the route.

Sure, plenty of people are totally comfortable navigating it, but you could make the same case to advocate the Imperial system over metric.

In those cases, Uber and the like not only provide an option that is cheaper than traditional taxis, but also a way to travel that doesn't involve wasting hours because you're visiting somewhere and ended up taking the wrong train.

I like the idea of public transport, but even the best ones are not necessarily the best option in every context.

> Subways and buses usually have schedules that don't always line up with when you happen to need it. Also, there is a mental tax in having to navigate it.

There's no need for any difference between navigating by car in Google Maps or navigating by public transport in Google Maps.

Meaning, in Netherlands Google Maps show the estimated arrival times of everything, transfers, etc. It'll take into account delays, cancellations, service announcements, etc. All easily within Google Maps (plus a few other apps; the information is publicly available).

Traveling by bike/car/foot/public transport is all the same complexity.

Am from Amsterdam, have lived in the States, will second this: the Netherlands has a great public transport system and 90% of the time the only consideration when choosing between driving/cycling (predictable/personal transport) and PT is the cost.

Sometimes there are routes that take significantly longer with PT, and in those scenarios it's just another argument for taking my bike.

There are a few scenarios in which I take taxis, but they're rare and usually when it's the only reasonable option (caused by time or availability of PT like at night).

I found Berlin even better. Very cheap, great service (and they speak German and English), great connections, easy app (Google Maps shows it all as well), tourist friendly tickets, and the best of all: no mandatory NFC card!!

It also depends on where you live in NL. Every 10 min a train to Ehv is neat, and I got a bus from Ams to my home city every few minutes whole day long, but the rural areas don't have such luxury. The joke for the trains goes, that "they don't drive on time, they drive on rails."

I agree. Also some public transport companies have their own application/web portal able to provide the same kind of service that Google Maps. But I disagree with "bike/car/foot/public transport is all the same complexity": public transport add a factor you can't control.

I would say there is one difference, which is that you may or may not have data access. I've been traveling internationally for over 10 years now, and never had cellular data when I would travel (thanks ATT), and most airports would have wifi, but different subways/trains etc don't. And I've been in a situation of relying only on GPS and hoping the app doesn't shut down while I'm walking somewhere far too many times.

Google has improved here with their offline maps, but even then, it's not 100%.

I'm not saying that PT is worthless or that we shouldn't improve it, but IMHO, Uber and the like fill a very critical "last mile" kind of problem that I think pairs nicely in cities with public transportation.

>>How about we improve public transport?

That sort of costs money, hence taxes. Which no one can agree upon, as everyone has their own list of what's important for them.

>>Why does someone have to profit for something that you agree is a “pain?”

Because people have to get paid, infrastructure and operations have to be expanded and world needs to run.

> That sort of costs money, hence taxes.

Indeed. And Uber is no different. The cost of our cheap rides is still paid by the wealthy, in this case VCs and other investors.