Other countries have legal, political, cultural, and social environments that differ significantly from the US. Finding out that something works better in London or Paris than it does in Seattle is interesting as trivia, but because of those environment difference usually doesn't tell much about how to improve that thing in Seattle.

Finding out that San Francisco does something better than Seattle does teach something about improving it in Seattle, because the legal, political, cultural, and social environments are much more similar.

Hence, domestic comparisons are more interesting, as they suggest more achievable improvements.

Indeed, no knowledge can be gained from the outside world. Those parts of the world run on magic and stinky cheese.

>Other countries have legal, political, cultural, and social environments that differ significantly

The same is true within the US. It is neither legally, politically, culturally, nor socially homogenous. Learning how to improve public transportation in Seattle would be more productive if you studied Amsterdam than if you studied Memphis or Baton Rouge.

However comparing internationally shows how far behind the US is on this front, and how much they need to improve.

No point giving pats on the back all round when nobody is even attempting to change the "legal, cultural and social" environment.

2nd paragraph: the data came from National Transit Database (NTD) and the American Community Survey (ACS). These data sets are USA-only.

Surely other countries have comparable datasets?