[majewsky]

Or to Europe, for that matter.

> incidental travel [is] actually the majority of trips that people take: going shopping, visiting friends, going to the doctor's, eating out, etc. [...] People own cars to serve this need, because nothing else will

I use public transit (or just plain walking) for all of these tasks. Admittedly, this only works because I live in a city rather than a village in the countryside: When I visit my brother who lives in a small village, I arrange that he picks me up with his car from the nearest train station.

But it's nothing like grandparent's very American perspective of "public transit is only good for commuting".

[nkoren]

> Or to Europe, for that matter.

Er, yeah. I reside in the UK, and have lived and worked extensively in Europe. As a public transport planner. So I kinda know what I'm talking about here.

I use public transport for all of those tasks too -- because I live in zone 2 of London. If I lived in a much smaller city, or even in zone 5, it would be much more difficult for me to do so. The ability of public transport to serve incidental travel depends greatly on the size and shape of the city, and on your place within it. So yes, it can work for some people -- but certainly not for all people, nor even for most people. Not even in Switzerland.

America is egregious for how badly its cities are laid out; with the exception of New York, they are almost wholly ill-served by public transport. Fun fact: with an average 9% occupancy, buses in America produce more emissions per passenger-mile than single-occupancy SUVs. This is not a problem that cannot be solved with more mass transport: it requires entirely new forms of transport, or spatial reorganisation of the city, or (most likely) both.

[CPLX]

> certainly not for all people, nor even for most people. Not even in Switzerland.

I mentioned Switzerland specifically for a reason, which is that it has an unusually high number of small fairly remote towns where cars are actually banned and nearly everyone reaches them by train on relatively low capacity lines, and even the tiniest rural villages are served by well synchronized bus services, directly contradicting your statement.

There really aren't any areas of the country where car ownership is absolutely essential, or even all that desirable. Sure lots of people have cars, but almost nobody has to.

Yes, of course as you point out it's a multifaceted problem that requires land use decisions instead of just blindly building train lines to nowhere. But you present our current car dependence as inevitability. It absolutely is not, it's a public policy choice we make.