[danaris]

> The reason you dont have buses to do that in the US is because people can afford single occupancy cabs.

It's much more complicated than that, though.

Public transport is looked down upon in the US—not just in the same classist way it is looked down upon in many places, "that's for the plebes", but like many public institutions, it is viewed by many to be inherently worse than private solutions, both ideologically and practically.

To a large extent, it is a victim of the deliberate practice of the American right wing, over the course of at least the last several decades, of reducing funding for public services (because Big Government Bad), then decrying their ineffectiveness (well, duh, they're not doing great because you took away half their budget), and pushing for them to be privatized.

[zip1234]

NIMBYism is about the only thing that unites political parties in the US these days.

[oftenwrong]

Most roads in the US are public, and funded with taxation. Granted, it requires a private car to benefit from them. Still, this suggests that anti-government sentiments can only partially explain this aspect of US transportation.

[082349872349872]

When Huey Long was governor of Louisiana, he wanted to build roads. His opposition did not want to pay for roads. But he managed to wrangle enough budget for 60 miles of road. Then he paved one mile of road in each parish. After having experienced the difference between the single paved mile and their existing mud ruts, the populace voted for a much more substantial road-building program.

(another unusual Louisiana political stunt: https://www.athensnews.com/news/local/louisiana-gov-huey-lon... )