[woodruffw]

The US has built lots of transportation infrastructure over the last 50 years, including astounding amounts of highways.

I think the bigger issues here are (1) a regulatory environment that heavily disfavors mass transit, and (2) a suburban (and, increasingly, urban) culture that prefers isolation to the risk of "undesirables" brought into their neighborhoods by mass transit.

As a small example of this: DC's metro was conceived a little over 50 years ago, and opened its first line about 47 years ago[1]. It's still expanding, and yet many of its stations are inconveniently placed because the communities it served didn't want DC's plurality black population entering their segregated suburbs[2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Metropolitan_Area_T...

[2]: https://ggwash.org/view/98/racial-politics-kept-college-park...

[steveBK123]

DC metro was falling apart with massive service cuts as recently as like.. last year wasn't it? As I recall they had some massive deferred maintenance on the rolling stock causing derailments.

[woodruffw]

The DC metro's funding scheme can be most succinctly and politely described as "bonkers"[1]. I brought it up as an example of the US successfully constructing mass transit in the last 50 years, not a shining example of municipal management.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Metropolitan_Area_T...