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I'm not disagreeing with you but there tons of cities with 250k to 10 million people with great transportation options.

    Amsterdam   : 1m
    Antwerp     : 0.6m
    Brussels    : 1.2m
    Barcelona   : 1.7m
    Copenhagen  : 0.7m

That said, places like the SF Bay Area and Southern California, are unlikely to get a large enough train system to be an alternative to cars anytime in the next 50-100 years. Adding 1-2 lines every 10 years is not enough. You need a extensive system. It needs fast express lines so that people making trips from one side to the other can do so in a reasonable amount of time. AFAIK the LA system they are sssslllooowwwlllyyy rebuilding, has only slow every-stop lines. It's, on average, door to door, going to be over 3hrs from the west side of LA to the east side of LA. Even if you live directly next to the station and need to go so some place next to the station on other end it will be 2hrs.

by fragmede1 days ago|

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And my answer to that is, if your area where people live isn't able to support a bus line, it's not a city. That means there's a lot of reality big towns out there.

by jodrellblank21 hours ago|

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Why does "supporting a bus line" mean the bus needs to make enough revenue from riders to pay for it but the area can have roads, traffic lights, roadsigns, etc. subsidised by the taxpayer without needing to make a profit from vehicle drivers paying for it? The deck is stacked by moto-normativity in favour of cars.

Highway 401 in Ontario is the largest highway in North America, up to 18 lanes wide. It moves 500,000 cars per day; fewer than a single subway line.

The incredible cost of building and maintaining it, the cost of 500,000 cars and fuelling them, the enormous land use, the environmental cost of the concrete, the idea that you could have a pleasant place to live or work near it... but we can't have trains which move more people, less pollutingly, less dangerously, in less space, are nicer to be around, and overall costs less, because it isn't profitable? As if Highway 401 is profitable?

by pfdietz17 hours ago|

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It's quite amazing then how cities didn't exist until buses were invented.