I realize that most Americans do not use transit ever – they prefer to drive, but I would think more people would realize that better transit will improve the driving experience. In metropolitan areas that are largely built out already we cannot just keep adding more and more driving lanes. Ya you could theoretically build stacked freeways or something, but even that has its limits, and it is extremely costly. We could get a lot more bang for our buck by improving transit which can take drivers off the road over time, freeing up more space for drivers.
I work in construction myself, so taking transit is probably never going to be an option for me because I am hauling tons of tools and materials from jobsite to jobsite, but even I can see that if we had better trains and buses, more people would choose to take those instead of clogging up the road for me.
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I can only speak for myself, but no public transit system in the world would get me across town like the highways currently do. Every option would be an incredibly expensive and slow alternative.
For public transit to work well, the city its in has to be populated and dense. Most places in the US aren’t that
Public transit in the US is where you go to get sexually harassed, sit on used needles and have people threaten to attack you if you don’t give them your shoes.
I think it’s because it’s just never really been used by most people so they don’t really know the benefits. Current American infrastructure isn’t built to have it, so it would take a lot of time and money that I imagine they would prefer to be spent on other things that are more immediately useful.
They don’t want to be in the same space as the poors
I’m an American that has lived in places with great public transit, and one thing the places with good public transit have in common is that they are much, much more densely populated than almost anywhere in the US. NYC is the only American city I’ve been to that is comparable to places like Seoul, Tokyo or Shanghai.
With how spread out many American cities and suburban areas tend to be, I think it’d be very, very hard to have a fully comprehensive and reliable public transit system that can get good coverage of the majority of places people would want to go.
Where did you conclude this by chance?
It’s not us, it’s the lobbyist $$$.
I’m currently on a bus in one of the safest cities in America. There’s currently 5 obvious homeless people who are clearly drugged out. 2 of which are being very loud and obnoxious. And 2 other people who are also obviously drugged out on here. I don’t want to be around those types, however my cars in the shop so I have no choice other than the more expensive uber.
Because they think only poor, dirty, minorities use it, when in reality and implemented well, everyone uses it. Commuter buses from NJ to NYC are filled with everyone from trump loving blue collar workers to wealthy office workers and CEOs.
Most of the communities are designed with cars in mind. The economics of rural transit is a death spiral. There aren’t enough people to run conveniently timed transit. Because the transit isn’t convenient, fewer people use it.
Define better
I don’t think most are actively antagonistic to the idea, but the reality of retrofitting it into a place not built for it is costly and highly disruptive.
It’s the years of disruption and cost done in at the expense of other things people care more about that generally runs into trouble.
I mean yeah there are some NIMBY types, but that’s what keeps them from being overriden by the rest.
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they been talking about running high speed rail through the texas triangle (an area in texas between houston, san antonio and dfw.) which has an enormous amount of people in it i think like 80 percent of the people in texas live in this area that is only about 20percent of the states landmass. every time it gets to the part where they do a cost and feasibility study it gets shut down. i think a lot of countries and places where they have high speed rail are much more densely populated than the US. truth is once you get out of dfw on way to houston there isnt that much traffic. i used to take the dart rail in dallas to work from parker road station in plano to downtown dallas. even though hwy 75 into dallas is a super heavily traveled rd it took about 2x as long on average to ride the dart rail vs driving it only became worth it when you considered that it cost 20 bucks to park down there whereas if you ride the train you dont have to park.
Two related ideas prevalent in my city:
To convert what we have now to better public transport would be a HUGE front-end investment, and the current state of our roads does not inspire confidence that it could and would be done (vs the local government halfassing it/giving up/wasting the money and leaving the roads worse)
And: there have been some improvements in public transport but they’ve been so slow and so halfassed that it’s made driving in the city and pedestrian safety worse. If it’s going to be more of that, most people don’t want it.
Transit only becomes profitable with high density, which brings congestion. Its also generally only used by the poor and unfortunate. So developing transit either means:
You will subsidize a bus you never use
Density will be increased, so congestion will increase
You will see an influx of poor people.
None of these is preferred to simply doing nothing.
Why would I want my tax dollars spent on something incredibly expensive, that cannot replace my commute in a cheaper faster way, that will never benefit me, and I will never use?
Because most Americans don’t use public transit now and don’t plan to in the future so they don’t want public resources used to pay for it.
If it cities could have been built around it in the first place, that’d be great. But since they’re not, where are these things going to go? How long will it take them to be built, and how much construction does that become in the meantime?
I live down town and bike everywhere. If I’m needing to use my car, it’s for a grocery run that would be way too hard or obnoxious to lug on a subway or whatever.
Short answer: despite some stereotypes, I think most Americans aren’t antagonistic, they are just skeptical.
Transit is a chicken and egg problem—you need frequency to get riders, but you need riders to justify that frequency. If you are in a mid-sized metro area, you see buses with hourly frequency with maybe a half-dozen riders, and it doesn’t seem like an economical or practical solution. To get more riders, you have to have 10-15 minute frequencies, but that is a lot of money for something that doesn’t seem very utilized. And to get mass transit—that is billions of dollars of money, years of building, and it seems like a big disruption for not much use.
Because realistically they will never get built. Look at CA and the promised high speed rail project. Compared to whag was promised, it has gone well beyond the projected finish date, has been limited significantly in scope, has reduced speed, and the budget has ballooned.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy in a lot of cases.
Transit doesn’t get funding, so it becomes unreliable, so people don’t take it, so it gets even less funding, so it gets even worse, and on and on.
To anyone bringing up density, yes, it doesn’t make sense for the entire US to have a dense transit network, if it was only about density, every major city would have reliable transit.
But outside of NYC, Chicago, LA, and maybe DC, Boston, and Philadelphia, we just don’t.
Why doesn’t Phoenix have more than 2 street car lines? Why doesn’t Dallas?
To me it is because there isn’t money to be made in it and no one is willing to pay for it.
Just to note, I ABSOLUTELY agree that basically every transit project in the US is insanely overpriced, but that doesn’t mean we should just avoid any and all transit investment.
American Corporate Greed. No money in it for big companies.
The problem is largely that when we do it, we do it half-assed and end up with stuff that’s unreliable and not used enough. It’s like trying to get something like a social media platform to catch on – we’d need to really just sell sell sell people on it – like free fares, huge security presence, celebrity endorsements – because if you could get to where like 40% of people take it daily, you have a nice metro full of normal people, and then the perception that transit is just for people who are poor or have too many DUIs would go away. You’d have more businesses around the transit, that would encourage more riding, etc Alas we are currently in a world where not driving (even if you live in a dense, walkable urban area) is like an instant left-swipe.
Many reasons. Most public transit in the US, excluding major cities, is very inefficient so the arguement ‘build more of this thing that doesnt really work’ doesnt sit well with most people. Also automotive ownership is pretty big in american culture. Many US towns were not build with public transit in mind, so integrating large scale transit into a place not designed for it is difficukt, eapecially in suburban sprawl areas.
We grow up with the belief cars = freedom (at least from my experience and seeing some of the car adverts from the 50s). At 16 a lot of us get our licence and a car and start driving everywhere.
I grew up in a suburb of Baltimore we needed a car to get anywhere. There was no other choice.
Cities were designed for cars.
I hadn’t taken public transportation until I was in my twenties in Boston.
I lived in England for 20 years, 15 of them without driving. Leeds specifically and they had trains and buses but no trams which made road traffic awful. Trains to work were two carriages and always packed beyond capacity.
Back in a suburb again so I have no choice I have to have a car to get anywhere. I would love a tram system or something but I doubt that would ever happen.
Your question seems to be “Why do people who never ride transportation systems don’t support improving transportation systems?”.
Because they don’t use it. Nobody wants to pay for shit they don’t use. If they don’t use it they don’t think it needs to exist.
If the benefits don’t go directly into their own pockets, individualist solipsistic Americans don’t want to pay for it.
They don’t believe in indirect benefit, because they’re simplistic and short minded.
Americans hate:
spending taxes on expensive projects
Using Public transport
walking
Public transport is thought of as lower class by many
Only NYC, DC, & to some extent Boston/SF/Chi have any coherent system. I think at very least, we should have trains from every major airport & it would catch on
It’s the same reason most Americans vote against their self interests: they can’t imagine a better world coming from government investments because their lived experience is austerity and frustration when it comes to government. This phenomenon isn’t limited to the US. The UK experiences the same thing.
It’s the same reason why lots of people like the idea of Medicare for All but it just all comes off as rhetoric when they get into the voting booth. They literally have never seen their government roll out positive, well implemented policies that improved their lives. What we have experienced is carrot dangling talks that go on for decades with no action or means tests polices that you personally won’t benefit from ECT. When it comes to transit we have been talking about hypothetical rail routes that connect major Midwest cities for a decade now and literally no ground has been broken. It’s hard to get people to really invest in these ideas when it feels like hypothetical talking. Cities aren’t being designed around transit. People aren’t being incentivized to live in more walkable areas that transit could easily serve. The proposal put forward fell like band-aids; and on top of that it feels like they probably won’t even happen. It all just comes off as talk and at a certain point you just tune that noise out.
It’s stupid and a waste of money in 90% of the country. No I am not turning my 30 minutes drive into a 4 hour bus ride stop trying to spend tax money on something no one wants.
Public transportation is great when done well. The subways in Berlin, Rome and London are fantastic and I love using them. The subways in NYC is pretty good. Everywhere else in the US they are complete shit. In Boston the green line takes as long as walking to get to your destination and trains are spotty. Why pay for shit service? Boston in particular has talked about improvements for 30 years and exactly nothing has improved
The majority can’t even get healthcare over here, we’re so far away from country wide transit
Racism plays a part in it.
I completely agree with you! It’s clear that improving transit options could benefit everyone, even those who rely on driving for work. Better trains and buses would not only ease congestion but also create a more efficient transportation system overall. It’s frustrating to see the focus solely on expanding roadways when there are smarter, more sustainable solutions available. Investing in transit can lead to a win-win situation, making commutes easier for everyone, including those of us in construction. Your perspective highlights the need for a more balanced approach to transportation planning.
It’s a chicken and egg situation.
Sadly American cities were built for cars and are generally unwalkable or at least not walking friendly. So once you get off the public transport, then what?
Americans tend to be independent, and it’s hard to be independent when you’re dependent on mass transit.
Because the US is so spread out geographically, there’s a surprisingly large space that’s difficult to cover with mass transit. It’s also not financially viable to do so because the population is just as spread out. Especially in the regions between the Mississippi river and California border.
I think at this point it’s the cost and use of eminent domain that turns a lot of people off. Truman’s Highway Act had no funding for public transit, National City Line funded by those with stakes in cars destroyed public transport in 25 major cities, this was done on purpose and undoing it will cost likely hundreds of billions. I also lived in a city that was pushing for public transport and got a lot done, but I also saw things get delayed and the rider experience take a serious nosedive over the last few years. Denver/Boulder train line. Density and ridership would not be an issue with this train, yet 21 years later and nothing is done.
Can’t hang fake testicles from a bus or train
In the burbs, they think that better transit means bringing the criminal elements out of the inner city and into the neighborhoods of those that can move away from the inner city.
Because Americans prioritize individualism.
Others have said variations on this, but I think it’s a combination of density, racism, classism, and timing.
I think other countries just have had a long history of all races and most classes taking public transit so it doesn’t feel scary. If you’ve got transit predominantly used by poor black men, the social dynamics of the U.S. are such that a middle class white woman just isn’t going to feel safe jumping on that bus or letting her unsupervised children ride. And, if she’s never going to use the public transit, she’s probably not going to support spending a lot of tax money on improving the system.
As to timing, I’m not on firm ground here, but I have a sense that a lot of countries developed their public transit systems before cars and highways were widely available to their populations. Maybe it’s because they were rebuilding after World War II or because they built their public transit systems before they had the economic and industrial capacity for a widespread highway system and car ownership. In the U.S., most places had highways, good roads, and a lot of car ownership pretty early on. (However, even as I type that, I’m remembering that there was a pretty robust interurban system in a lot of places in the U.S. in the early 20th century, so maybe I’m all wet here.)
And there is the density issue. I think people oversell this one to some extent. But it remains true that people in the U.S. are more spread out. So it’s tougher to serve a critical mass of people with a few miles of rail.
I live in a very conservative area. Most seem to be worried about the cost. Also, hardly anyone has actually experienced good public transit so they don’t know what they’re missing out on
Sunk cost fallacy.
I have a car! Why would I want money spent on something I won’t use?
Lack of education and brainwashing.
I’m on the rapid Amtrak from Philadelphia to DC right now thinking the same thing
Brother we are on the verge of holocaust 2.0 over here and youre asking us about public transit? Most of us are renewing and getting passports passport cards offical copies of documents etc.
There’s a lot of data on this topic. I think many people in the US don’t have the opportunity to travel to other countries where they can see public transit done right. Taking a trip to most of Europe or Asia, or at this point, even many urban areas in developing nations in Latin America, Morocco, etc., they will be amazed at how crappy US transit is in comparison.
Americans’ opinions towards transit are driven by US policy and US media, which have been hostile to public transit going back to the Reagan era. Both are heavily influenced by whoever funds it, which historically has been industries threatened by good public transit (oil, car, plane, real estate, etc).
Because we know our government will fuck it up, spend a shit ton of money and generate zero value.
Exhibit 1: California high speed rail.
Cost estimate has increased from $33B to $128B.
Here’s the progress after 17 years and many billions. The green section is completed track ready for passengers.
https://brilliantmaps.com/california-high-speed-rail-progress/
Because the train industry doesn’t have commercials on the level that auto makers, insurers, and all downstream businesses do. The narrative is controlled by those being paid to distribute the message and they are not going to lose any money over bettering society.
A lot of Americans live in suburbs. It’s a half hour walk to the nearest bus stop from my home. Mass transit just isn’t practical.
We’re a bunch of brainwashed idiots.
America is BIG, like…REALLY BIG with a lot of empty space. The reality is that almost any transit will not benefit 90+ percent of the population and we are just selfish at that point
The built environment is made for cars. Unlike most countries where the cities were built before cars. This makes it VERY hard to manage what they call the last mile. Essentially sprawl makes it almost impossible to have effective transit.
Most will happily ride a bus if it stops outside their house, but won’t walk 1/2 mile to one
The government has been incredibly inept in the past 50 years. Witness The Big Dig in Boston.
As an american, i can confidently say that we’ve been brainwashed into thinking cars are better. This is through decades of daily advertising, lobbying, and suggestive messaging.
Its not antagonistic
it’s just living in reality
It’s never going to happen
The country’s infrastructure is built around roads, not rail
Cities are built around roads, not rail
The only way to do high speed rail is to dig underground
And guess what?
Nobody wants to pay for that
Because everyone already has cars
So no matter what we want, it’s just never going to happen
Even busses are not realistic
Our government is corrupt. They work for oligarchs and billionaires, not us
They don’t give a shit about people who want to take public transport
And because most voters are caught up in the left vs right propaganda machine…nothing ever changes
Frankly, most of us are tired of people from other countries asking us why we don’t invest in public transport
Because no matter how many times we say it’s never going to happen, they just ignore us try to tell us that it’s possible…even though they have no earthly idea to make it happen
This is just the way it is
Most Americans understand it and accept it
Plus…fuck spending my morning commute on a train with strangers. 20 minutes in my own car, listening to my own music is a far better way to start the day than sitting next to some over cologner or someone talking on speakerphone
The places where it is economically viable usually already have it. Think NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston, LA, etc. The US is far less dense than a place like the UK or France, so having a comprehensive public transit system that covers everyone would be prohibitively expensive in most places.
Why would I voluntarily be near a bunch of fucking weirdos when I could just drive
Americans generally distrust the government
There are a lot of complicating factors here.
Many Americans live in rural or semi-rural areas where skepticism of government spending is high. They very reasonably don’t believe mass transit will ever help them get to or from anywhere that they want to go, so why would they want to pay for it?
Between most major cities (like, say, Los Angeles and Phoenix), the primary transportation options are to go car or air. Flying is faster, but more expensive. For rail to compete with those, the price point and duration have to fall somewhere in between: faster than a car and cheaper than a plane. That’s actually pretty difficult to do, considering how much HSR costs.
Intra-city transit tends to be sparse in many places because of a chicken-egg dilemma: there won’t be any riders until you build it, so it’s extremely difficult to predict how many riders it will actually have.
That lack of intra-city transit also hampers HSR. Even if I could get from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon, quickly by rail, I won’t have a car when I get there. If transit in Portland doesn’t take me where I want to go, the convenience of rail disappears.
Construction of HSR, dedicated bus routes, and transfer stations is far more expensive now than it was several decades ago, so the ROI is harder to justify. Right-of-way issues are especially thorny and costly because there are so many potential jurisdictions that long rail lines have to pass through.
Between population density and far-flung job hubs, it’s difficult to design transit systems that would have enough riders to justify the costs. As cumbersome as traveling by car can be, it provides levels of flexibility and independence that rail and bus lines just can’t match.
Why do people keep asking this?
Most of Europe is 300+ years old, most of the US is less than a hundred. The US was built with cars in mind, Europe was built with horses in mind. The way cities are laid out and their density is vastly different. The US layout is not conducive to trains as a major mode of transportation in cities.
In my state, (NC) it is racism pure and simple.
They want to make it difficult for people to get around on public transportation, you then have to buy a car and insurance to get a job — including gas and maintenance. Then you can restrict people from getting a drivers license by requiring that they go through a day of crap to get a drivers license. Then, if you don’t get a license and get pulled over you are in the court system — fines on fines — fines that you couldn’t pay because you were using the car to look for a job.
Systemic and institutional in North Carolina. Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, DC, Boston, NY, all have public transportation that rocks. Here they can’t even get a train to go from DC to Raleigh without going 5mph for 20 miles and can’t have an HOV because that would take away from the 90mph drives — stick those busses on the median
Alternative viewpoint, Americans are so condemned by cars that any delay due to construction of said projects would piss them off to no end. We already lose our minds to constant construction on our road ways and endless delays that were supposed to reduce delays and traffic later (we all know that more land does not make traffic better).
Real answer: it’s not feasible with our city layouts. Mass transit does exist. For example, in the suburbs where I used to live there was a metro train station that you could park at and ride a train downtown. The problem was, including drive time to the metro station + train ride into the city + walk/bus to your destination you might as well have just driven into the city in your own car instead of using the train.
I think they’re sceptical. Look at CA highspeed rail. It was a bureaucratic disaster. Consultants stole the money while nothing was accomplished. If CA can’t do it we have no faith it can be done without massive overspending.
I’m a huge transit advocate but even i see the shortcomings
For me it’s to slow, I would never use it, public transit by me takes over an hour for what I can drive in 25-30 mins
The real answer is that Americans were brainwashed by the American auto industry and the government’s construction of the state interstate system in the mid-20th Century into buying car culture wholesale. Many places in the U.S. did have good public transportation in the early twentieth century… look at the Red Line in Los Angeles – The Red Car system began declining in the 1930s and 1940s due to increased car ownership and changing travel habits. By 1961 it was dead. And now we have generations who are so firmly rooted in car culture that they look at mass transit with skepticism.
I don’t know that it’s antagonistic. I’m a Brit, now US resident, and a lot of the US is really quite sparsely populated and towns are often really spread apart. There are certain cities that could do an awful lot better (Dallas, I’m looking at you), but mostly there wouldn’t be the demand for public transportation; these factors would also make it very expensive to operate. A
The USA is a country that fetishizes wealth, above all else. Anything that benefits and is used by the poor will looked on with suspicion and disdain.
I am adverse to witnessing a dead man’s corpse being sexually assaulted by a sicko such as happened recently on a NYC subway recently.
Because the people clamoring for better transit also wanna ban vehicles they don’t want on the road and think anyone with a truck is a fascist. Dont be surprised when those people you’re insulting are fighting back against what you want.
Half of the population doesn’t live in an area where public transit isn’t practical and basically see way better uses for their tax dollars.
Because the public transportation we already have is often smelly, unsafe, expensive, and inefficient
To that last point, the country is much more spread out than other countries that have better options, so it would be very hard to get everyone where they need to go
Also, outside of rush hour, I don’t think most of us have the kind of traffic you’re imagining either. You’re probably hearing that from the celebrities that live in CA
You mean like Californias bullet train $18B spent with no track laid and $100B short? Thats why
In the U.S., car culture is closely tied to suburban living. Many Americans prefer the privacy and independence of single-family homes in the suburbs over apartment living, where space is shared and often limited. With a vast and established highway system already in place, driving is more convenient and accessible than relying on public transit, which remains underdeveloped and underused in many areas.
One of the biggest issues facing public transportation in the U.S. today is safety. Many people avoid buses and trains not because they’re just inconvenient, but because they feel unsafe. Until that perception changes, public transit will remain a tough sell for most Americans. A major step forward would be enforcing laws and curbing disruptive or criminal behavior on public transit. This means having security or police presence on trains and buses, holding people accountable for violations, and ensuring a sense of order. If public transit doesn’t feel safe, it won’t become a viable alternative, no matter how much money is spent on expanding it.
This applies to me. Several factors. Convenience. I like being able to pull my vehicle out of the garage and go where I want to go. One stop, no problem. Two or three stops, still not a problem. Second. I don’t want to sit next to anyone I don’t know. The public transportation I’ve seen (Dallas, Phoenix, San Francisco) the people riding seem less than desirable. Third. I don’t want to limit myself to what I can personally carry. I can load up my truck with whatever I need and bring it home – Costco groceries, Home Depot, etc.
The thing the everyone is afraid to say is having my own car means I don’t have sit next to strangers. I dont have to put up with noise, dirty seats, etc. I don’t have to stop anywhere I’m not going.
Half the time it’s the transit that makes driving impossible.
In my home state of Ohio, a railway was proposed to streamline traffic between major cities. The public was overwhelmingly in favor of it. I’m not exaggerating when I say this, a fucking shitload of people drive from Dayton to Cincinnati and vice versa every day for work. And from Dayton to Columbus. I know people that drive from Dayton to Lima. I even knew a guy that drove from Springfield to fucking Cleveland every day for work. Our politicians dismantled it and it never came to fruition. Sometimes it’s not the people, it’s the lawmakers.
When I take the train in Tokyo or Paris it’s great. When I take the train in Los Angeles I don’t feel safe. Mass transit is great IF it comes with adequate funding not just for the train but for adequate security on the trains and in an around the stops. If not, forget it.
The worst thing about public transportation is the public.
I have very little confidence in the government’s ability to deliver on large infrastructure projects. Unfortunately with these projects, every special interest it put ahead of actually getting the project done.
Because there’s more profit in not innovating
I’d say we aren’t
But my personal experience with public transit in the us is not very good. Slow and lots of undesirables. For most it would have to be a better experience