Quote:
Originally Posted by saptech
There was a time when majority of the people said they would never give up their horse & buggy for a horseless carriage, but when Henry Ford started mass producing horseless carriages, it finally took hold. It will take time for people to grow on it.
Gas prices are itching its way up to that $5 mark, sooner than later, besides, we should be demanding some alternatives to gasoline since some of our biggest haters control the oil. $2 a gallon days are long gone.
The government will just have to put a plan into action, yes there will be alot of people against it at the beginning, but as has been said, if its cheaper than to maintain an auto they will accept it.
We can't afford to continue on the status quo, it's not beneficial for us in the long run.
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There's a difference though because the infrastructure for cars was already there. Cars were more efficient. They got you there faster and the roads were already there. That's not really the case now.
Look at it this way. There are a handful of cities that have really well developed public transportation systems. These tend to be big cities like NYC, Chicago, Washington DC, etc.... There are maybe a dozen of them in the US like that. Maybe. So yeah, you could link NYC and Philly via a light rail and that makes sense.
But let's look at something that's more practical. The biggest city near me is like a 3 hour drive away. If I have business up there tomorrow, I'm going to get up early and drive the three hours. I could fly and get there in like an hour, but I'd then have to rent a car because that city, like the vast majority of cities in the US, doesn't have a public transportation system that's worth anything. I'm left to either take a cab once I'm there or rent a car. Because both of these plus the cost of airfare and the time involved in this, I'm going to drive. Even if you put in a light rail that could get me there in 45 mins, I'm still going to drive just because I need a car at the other end. Public transportation just isn't developed in the vast majority of US cities. In a lot of places it just isn't there at all. In the places where it is there, you can look forward to walking for miles between the stop and your destination. A car is just more efficient in most cities. You would have to spend billions and maybe even trillions in overhauling the entire infrastructure.
Edit: TLDR - people don't want light rail. They want cars. They just want more efficient cars and/or cheaper gasoline.