In the last year, the number of times my car owning friends have not been able to make it to an event because their car is broken is surprisingly high. While I have never not been able to get somewhere because public transport is not working. If the train is down I can take the tram, if somehow both of them are down there will be replacement busses scheduled.

And if somehow everything stops working I can book an uber which is still massively cheaper than owning a car.

You know what would solve that sitting and waiting? More public transit. I know the American public isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but we can introduce them to the concept of better, faster public transit, like other nations have. (And having enough money to buy a car + being impatient/unwilling to schedule your time shouldn't be a license to make society worse)

It's actually more efficient at scale, because it increases the economy at a lower cost. Poor or rural communities can be connected to more places with jobs, schools, etc. Those people can then grow more capital by not having to pay for expensive personal transportation. Meaning more people working, making money, contributing that money back to the economy, less cost to things like ERs, crime, etc. It lifts up the whole society, so it costs much less in real terms.

The last mile has more options than ever. E-bikes, sit-on scooters, golf carts, or that crazy trend of "walking" that I hear is good for your health. There's even the option for smaller, local mini-buses to serve the elderly and disabled. Those same vehicles could be combined with other services, like postal mail, food delivery (for elderly/disabled/infirm).

Where I live in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, we have the mini-bus to serve vulnerable people. The mail is delivered by local people with Subarus and Jeeps. But there's no other public transit. The closest thing to it is a charter bus, which only runs through a town 45 minutes from here, once a week. There's thousands of people out here, disconnected from the rest of society. And they're poor, so the few vehicles they have are always falling apart, and mechanics shops are always full. There is a taxi service in a nearby town (45mins away), and it has a 1.5 out of 5 star rating, because no alternatives means you have no choice but to deal with how terrible they are.

Autonomous vehicles are a good idea, but it's unlikely they will pan out in the long term, unless via "corporate welfare" or similar funding. The cost to develop, maintain, insure, etc them is just way more expensive than a dude in a driver's seat. They are being floated by SV money in rich cities; they won't scale.

The Scottish Government provides free at the point of use bus service for under-22s. I wish we could have had that 25 years ago when I first moved here. As it is, it's an ideal way for the teens to get around and makes it the sensible option when taking children into the city during the daytime.

Driving is prohibitively expensive for young people, and in the UK you can't drive cars on public roads until you're 17.

> Then it doesn't work for whole categories of people (families with small kids, etc) especially because it fundamentally just can't do the "last mile", pretty much ever.

That's bullshit. My whole childhood I went everywhere by train and bus. You can walk the last mile if the bus stop isn't close enough to where you need to go.

I know some (embarrassingly rich) countries are incapable of designing a halfway decent public transit system, but the problem isn't with public transit itself.

I take my small kids on public transit often. Why can't kids ride a bus or a train? Don't we even have special forms of mass transit for little kids (school busses?)

How are cars better with little kids? If I'm in the car with my kids and one kid suddenly really wants a snack, there's nothing I can do. They're strapped in the back, I'm in the front driving. On the train, I just grab a snack from my bag and give them a bite. Or if they're bored I can play with them, etc.

> it fundamentally just can't do the "last mile", pretty much ever.

I live in a suburb in North Texas. I walk out my door with the stroller and my kids. There's a bus stop super close by that can easily load a stroller (all busses are wheelchair accessible). I take that to the train station or the bus goes to the library or several other parks and rec centers. The train stops a very short walk to several museums, the convention center, the airport, the zoo has its own train station, the hockey/basketball arena has its own stop, etc. And this is all in an area where the mass transit isn't even that great.

The transit doesn't go everywhere we want to go. I agree that's the biggest pain point. But I truly don't understand the logic that it's bad for kids. My kids ride often, and they love it. What kid hates trains?

If it's just the free market then why do we need to regulate single family zoning across the United States? And why can't the suburbs pay for their own infrastructure?

A lot of people prefer living in financially affordable environments, and in a functioning market, dense towns/cities will always be more affordable unless you literally work on a farm.

Everyone prefers to live in a giant sprawling mansion (with personal private forest) in the middle of the CBD. But preference is useless data unless it includes their pricetag preference too.

Suburbs are dense enough to support transit as proven in a small number of cities around the world (mostly not English speaking). However suburbs can only support great transit, since anything less and driving is enough better as to be worth it.

NYC has a real cost problem. Digging a tunnel costs a lot - not anywhere near what it costs in NYC. You can also build bridges over the top for a lot less than digging a tunnel. Modern subways should be 100% automated saving the cost of a driver. (I keep hoping we see self driving buses since drivers are the large share of the costs)