[lxgr]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree on all counts and it really is decades behind other (non-US) cities – but again, I'd take it over driving a car myself and having to worry about traffic and parking any day, congestion charge or not.

I don't have a great idea for addressing all of these problems, but I strongly suspect that people who can afford it opting out of public transit in favor of cars would be even worse.