A lot of it is self inflicted wounds. Americans thanks to the car can live like 30-40 miles from work and have an acceptable commute. Thats hard to do in a timely fashion on public transit anywhere, which seems to work best up to a 5-15 mile radius or so. People have to be willing to live closer (and often it is cheaper to live close to the center of town as that is where the recent immigrant minority populations find their cheaper housing, than in the newer construction suburbs full of doctors and lawyers and private schools).
Rail suburbs do this relatively easily. The issue isn't distance; public transport can go faster than cars in any case - the issue is sufficient density to achieve a reasonable occupancy rate. Plenty of countries have commuter suburbs/towns that are dense enough to justify 35-40 miles of public transit at high speeds and that built it as a result, and there's quite a few places in the US that could justify it but don't.
Even if you started building it you pick winners and losers with which town gets a rail station. A dozen commuter lines extending out in a 35 mile radius would be seriously impressive as a new network anywhere in the world really, yet that only means a dozen towns 35 miles out see a connection, the rest don’t. This also demands high speed rail to compete with cars; a typical american commuter rail going 70mph top speed with a dozen stops of some interval including acceleration and decelleration plus a potential transfer to a local line or bus to get to work from that commute rail station is some serious time to make up, compared to the case in all but a handful of american cities where even during rush hour a more or less fully built out freeway dual ring and feeder network is flowing at 70mph with no stops in between.
Taxing the previously subsidized usage of those roads is a start. See NYC's recent starter congestion tax. It still has a long way to go, but we can certainly improve the world slowly!
People who are driving there are likely doing so in a way that allows them to either absorb costs or pass them on to others.
Kansas City, for example, does not have a workable public transit system. If you charge a congestion tax to reduce traffic on interstates, it means real pain because there is no alternative.
There are far more Kansas Cities in the US than there are New York Cities.
Yeah people seem to think that driving costs up for driving will change behavior and build infrastructure. The reality is it will just hook the local government or authority to the tax.
Well sure, if you're now sneaking in the qualifier that the costs are marginal. But obviously there is some price at which people do change their behavior.
Well, yeah. If magically people are going to change their behavior, marginal cost matters. If it costs me $10 to drive to a destination, and you introduce a tax that adds $5, there’s a $5 marginal cost difference.
For the commuter, there’s a few options in most places: take a bus if available and save money at the cost of time, wfh, complain and get the company to move, move to a closer locale, or pay. Making a fast convenient transit system is not happening in 2025, and most of the field of dreams thinking about bike lanes isn’t working.
In NYC, it’s a scheme to prop up the MTA, whose labor contracts consume all oxygen — the organization is broke after imposing a regional sales tax that affects people living as far north as Poughkeepsie. And frankly, as awesome as NYC is, it’s fucked long term - it’s no longer a diversified economy, and the biggest industry is slowly attriting away. You need transit, and everyone is priced out of areas that are transit accessible. Many buildings in Manhattan are essentially vacant today.
In my city, a $6M budget hole prompted a sudden concern for child safety. We lowered the speed limit to 25, 20 in school zones, and setup a network of cameras. The busiest corridor attracted 15,000 tickets in a week. Guess what else happened? People in that corridor made alternate choices, and three busy retailers in the strip announced they were closing.
The difference is elasticity - the marginal cost and hassle of getting a toll/ticket will lead me to another CVS. My office Christmas party can be outside of the city line. But my employer is more sticky.
