Having lived for a few years in Europe now, I can tell you that thoughtful city planning is totally possible at critical densities, and highly worth it. The quality of life for citizens is highly improved by having first of all, walkable cities. Every bus station, 4-lane road, and parking lot within a city makes it less walkable. Since many European cities were already quite large well before automobiles, they inherit their walkability through their centuries of necessity. It is going to be hard to push many US cities towards that density threshold with just buses and taxis. I'll respond to some of your points.
<quote>Subways and light rail are high cost, high visibility, negative return investments for most municipalities.</quote>
That's absolutely fine. The government and public infrastructure is not really meant to turn a profit. They are funded through tax dollars since they have positive externalities for all citizens. It's just usually the case that pay-per-use is just too expensive to bootstrap effectively. We need to rid ourselves of this mental model. The government needs to spend money to make the public system work, hands down. And that means taxes. And even if you don't use the subway, you benefit that other people do (because they don't have their huge cars taking up your road space and parking space!)
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Subways are very expensive to build, very expensive to move, and a deficit on their community if the areas in which they're built don't have very high population densities.
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So what. It works in NYC and in pretty much every major European city. These are old, well-established cities where digging is fraught with peril. As I mentioned before, the problem is that US cities usually aren't dense enough.
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If they're instead given dedicated space, they become much more expensive as extra road lanes must often be built (or easements otherwise negotiated and purchased by municipalities), and they end up much harder to move for want of further easement & road expansion.
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Well, considering that public transport is generally more space efficient than autos, replacing a lane with a tram or light rail track should actually increase capacity. Why do we keep thinking that it has to be additive (i.e. in addition to existing roads)? No wonder people balk.
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Buses require no tracks, no tunnels, no $5 million train cars, and a route can be switched in a day by putting up a couple new bus stop posts. Bus systems can actually be profitable if local governments don't try to make political wins by drawing expensive bus routes in distant, low-volume rural areas. Buses suffer from traffic like most light rail does.
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That's great, let's have more buses! (Although I disagree that routes into rural areas are for political points.) But buses won't be enough. Subways are unbelievably efficient once they are in place (you can fit literally 500 people in one train!), and again, they require critical density. We need to get there, and buses are step along the way.
Also, BIKES and BIKE lanes. Nothing really beats walking or riding a bike to work on a nice day. Hands down! Try Copenhagen.
<quote>Subways and light rail are high cost, high visibility, negative return investments for most municipalities.</quote>
That's absolutely fine. The government and public infrastructure is not really meant to turn a profit. They are funded through tax dollars since they have positive externalities for all citizens. It's just usually the case that pay-per-use is just too expensive to bootstrap effectively. We need to rid ourselves of this mental model. The government needs to spend money to make the public system work, hands down. And that means taxes. And even if you don't use the subway, you benefit that other people do (because they don't have their huge cars taking up your road space and parking space!)
<quote> Subways are very expensive to build, very expensive to move, and a deficit on their community if the areas in which they're built don't have very high population densities. </quote>
So what. It works in NYC and in pretty much every major European city. These are old, well-established cities where digging is fraught with peril. As I mentioned before, the problem is that US cities usually aren't dense enough.
<quote> If they're instead given dedicated space, they become much more expensive as extra road lanes must often be built (or easements otherwise negotiated and purchased by municipalities), and they end up much harder to move for want of further easement & road expansion. </quote>
Well, considering that public transport is generally more space efficient than autos, replacing a lane with a tram or light rail track should actually increase capacity. Why do we keep thinking that it has to be additive (i.e. in addition to existing roads)? No wonder people balk.
<quote> Buses require no tracks, no tunnels, no $5 million train cars, and a route can be switched in a day by putting up a couple new bus stop posts. Bus systems can actually be profitable if local governments don't try to make political wins by drawing expensive bus routes in distant, low-volume rural areas. Buses suffer from traffic like most light rail does. </quote>
That's great, let's have more buses! (Although I disagree that routes into rural areas are for political points.) But buses won't be enough. Subways are unbelievably efficient once they are in place (you can fit literally 500 people in one train!), and again, they require critical density. We need to get there, and buses are step along the way.
Also, BIKES and BIKE lanes. Nothing really beats walking or riding a bike to work on a nice day. Hands down! Try Copenhagen.