[electric_mayhem]

> What is it about public transit in the US that it is so... bad?

Massive money and entrenched behind preserving a car-based life.

Car companies, auto workers unions, railroads can siphon off funds from promised improvements to cover deferred maintenance and give themselves bonuses for being so clever… Hell, AAA which one might expect to spend its income on serving its members instead diverts money to proactively lobbying against improvements in public transit in an ongoing display of cynical self-preservation

It’s basically hopeless.

[KerrAvon]

Nonsense. There is working transit in the US and a huge appetite for more. But it takes decades to do this stuff. "China did massive infrastructure project in two years" -- China is also a communist dictatorship (for some value of those words), and we can't do that here. We could streamline things a bit more, of course, but it's never going to be cheap and easy in the US.

If you want to help, vote. Or even run for something on a pro-transit, YIMBY platform.