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It's weird, but I first noticed this when I went to Greece. It's kind of difficult to get around in Greece. They don't have a wide-ranging national train system like some other European countries. They have a bunch of regional bus lines to get you from area to area, and they may only run once or twice a day. That'll mostly just get you between major cities, and they take a while. I also noticed how difficult it was to get from my SO's place in NJ farm country to a nearby big city. From Philadelphia, I have to take an Amtrak up to Newark (or a SEPTA regional line up to Trenton, and then an Amtrak/NJT to Newark), then another train to the closest NJT stop in NJ, and then bike a couple dozen miles. That's at least 4 hours, compared to 1.2 hours by car. Nearby towns and cities have shuttle services between other cities/towns, but trying to get to Philadelphia with those would require 5 or 6 transfers, basically the entire day, if you can even time it right to do it in one day. Anyone who lives out in the boonies and wants to work a well-paying job in the city is going to need to commute hours by car, which is expensive both in transportation cost and in time. Having a car is expensive, but anyone trying to improve their station in life will need one to get to a better job. And the time it takes to transport themselves takes them away from things like family/personal time, childcare, continuing education, or additional jobs. So transportation will definitely hold the country's economic development back (in terms of increased access to jobs that pay better), as long as most of the good jobs are located in hard-to-reach metropolises. If you suggest a plan for people to ditch their car in exchange for better public transit, the response seems to be "but I like my car!". Nobody wants to give up a convenience just to improve the economy. |
It's just a lot more confident to use public transport mostly because it's cheap and just great.
I think people will learn to use public transport options once it's affordable, reliable and everywhere.
As counter example Austria where I know a lot more people with cars. Their public transport isn't bad but expensive and unreliable.