"A study in the Netherlands of car drivers, for example, found that drivers' perceptions of how long their trip would take by public transportation tended to "deviate substantially from real travel times." Whether this was because car drivers didn't know, or because they don't want to know, is an open question. Car drivers will often describe themselves as "car dependent," even when the designation isn't objectively true; they are instead rationalizing their chosen course of action."
Hence the annoying difficulty of implementing good public transit after your country is already full of motorists. Americans can't conceive of a modern lifestyle without automobiles, therefore public transit is an afterthought in most American cities.
public transit is an afterthought in most American cities
In my experience, it largely depends on the city. Some have very good mass-transit systems (Chicago's always been ridiculously easy for me to get around in, for example). Some have none. Some have them but have implemented them in such a way as to be near useless (Atlanta, I'm looking at you).
Maybe. Even though the travel time by public transportation might mistakenly be perceived to be longer than it is doesn't imply that the actual travel time is acceptable.
I've found people also underestimate the car transportation time, though, so the estimated time difference is compounded. In particular, when people give me estimates of how long it'll take to drive somewhere, it seems to almost always be the best-case scenario, not the average time. Excludes foreseeable complications, like buffer time for the once-a-week occurrence that a freeway lane is closed, and an "unexpectedly" long time spent finding parking.
I thought this was going to be about designing navigation for a website. I read through the whole article waiting for them to tell me how their studies showed users were more likely to click on links at the bottom of a landing page than at the top, because they didn't have to "Travel" back upwards to click on it. Funny how we sometimes make assumptions about what where we think an article is going.
It was still interesting, it just wasn't what I was expecting :-)
Hence the annoying difficulty of implementing good public transit after your country is already full of motorists. Americans can't conceive of a modern lifestyle without automobiles, therefore public transit is an afterthought in most American cities.