> What people are expressing a desire for is more robust public transit and transportation facilities that protect everyone: peds, drivers, cyclists, etc.
I'm going to take a guess here that you're in a bubble. Most people don't give more than a passing thought to protecting anybody else on the road but themselves and their own loved ones. You could say enlightened self interest means this should extend to random strangers, but I bet that as a practical matter it does not. I'd even go farther and suggest that the largest plurality of people who support public transit want it so that it will take other people off the road, not them.
There’s plenty of evidence that traffic is almost exclusively induced demand and that as you build other facilities and expand existing ones that more people use them. “Just one more lane bro”, etc.
America tends to be car-centric because that’s the only perceived option.
People that want more public transit probably never did public transit. It took me a few horrible interactions on a public transit and some disgusting experience in car share to never support anything “communist”. Specially when you get kids.
I'm going to take a guess here that you're in a bubble. Most people don't give more than a passing thought to protecting anybody else on the road but themselves and their own loved ones. You could say enlightened self interest means this should extend to random strangers, but I bet that as a practical matter it does not. I'd even go farther and suggest that the largest plurality of people who support public transit want it so that it will take other people off the road, not them.