Pure nonsense - you don't have to live in Megacity One to have that level of functioning public transport. Most people in Europe live in cities with populations under a million and guess what - even the smaller regional cities in Germany, France, the Netherlands etc have fully functional public transport systems.

The only thing really holding back public transport is lack of imagination and ambition. Just because things don't work now doesn't mean they can't if you actually try.

You don’t have to live in an ultra-urban area, but 80% of Americans live in an urban area already. [0]

When we have discussions like this, the “normal case” is actually that people live in cities, so that’s obviously what the conversations gravitate around.

I grew up in a small town (4k pop), and there’s no reason bikes shouldn’t be extremely effective in town. It’s tiny! There’s no true need to drive a large, inefficient vehicle .5mi to the rite aid or McDonald’s. Nearly everyone in this tiny town is within quick walking distance of what used to be a passenger train station. It could become a passenger train station again with the right investment.

People living in truly rural areas is an edge case where cars obviously make sense. Even then, the majority of car trips are local. 60% of trips are fewer than 6mi.

0: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g... 1: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1042-augu...

The average trip distance is likely higher than 6 miles. Even assuming 0 mile trips for all of the 60% under 6 miles and the low end of each range puts the average over 5 miles. That also pretends that you don't take kids, or pets, or other people. Not everyone is traveling only by themselves to very local places.

Edit: meant average, originally put median

Come visit Edinburgh! People love to complain about the buses here too, but they're genuinely pretty good -- and there's absolutely no way I'm commuting into the city centre by car.