[jessaustin]

Houston is hot. There are few trees, sidewalks, crosswalks, or other improvements that could make pedestrian travel easier. Relative to other cities at similar latitudes (e.g. Cairo or New Delhi), Houston's residents are rich, fat, and unaccustomed to walking. Therefore they are much less willing to walk or bicycle. Asinine development habits created neighborhoods with no through streets, so any local trip is about 60% longer than the Cartesian distance.

There are many cities in USA that also need more public transit, in which it would be much easier than in Houston to encourage that. People who care about public transit don't live in or care about Houston.