[navigatesol]

>Public transportation is seen as inconvenient and for lower class people, so large transit projects like this get no traction. You will never see executives or politicians taking trains to work like you do in European countries. Except in NYC.

I disagree. This is a chicken-or-egg problem. Nobody is inherently against public transit. Having commuted in a few cities in North America, it's far more comfortable than sitting in traffic. If you have a good system, i think people would use it. The GO Train in the Greater Toronto Area is a good example; it's filled to the brim with white-collar city workers.

[vonmoltke]

> Nobody is inherently against public transit.

I knew plenty of people in the suburbs of Dallas who were against public transportation and any expansion of DART out to their towns. It was usually accompanied by talk of "that element" coming up from the city to rob their houses. It was fucking ridiculous, but unfortunately these people exist and need to be dealt with in order to get transit projects through.

[Aaronstotle]

Option seems simple, don't give them a choice in the matter. Say we're building X, it will be done to improve public transit.

[vonmoltke]

The problem is DART needs the outlying towns to join it in order to run anything there. The NIMBYs simply pressured the town into not agreeing to join, so there was no way to do this.