In 2015, Belgium had a Population density of 363people/Km^2. Massachusetts in 2015 had 336 people/KM^2. So, pretty close. The difference is that Belgium has a much more uniform population distribution vs Massachusetts.
Secondarily, Belgium can define it's own national policy, while MA must compromise with the rest of the country, including CA, WY, MT, and NY, all of which have very different economic and practical concerns.
The US's size is not a unique problem, but, it is a problem, and the governmental structure we have chosen does pose some unique problems.
Obviously the US has some structural issues, otherwise it wouldn't have these persistent failures. All I'm doing is pushing back against the simplistic "but the US is so big compared to all those tiny countries".
If you want to talk about density or uniform distribution... Why is Australian public transit so much better than American public transit?
America's governmental structure isn't unique either. There are other countries with the same kind of federalism.
And similar rebuttals can be made for virtually all other explanations.
I guess what I'm really getting at is that in the real world there are no easy solutions or explanations to problems despite the penchant in places like HN and Reddit to try to reduce explanations to a single paragraph. America's problems are likely due to a complex interaction between federalism, its geographic size, its traditional wariness of cities, its first mover advantage turning into obsolete infrastructure, and many other factors besides. But it is hard to know that the relative importance of any of those things actually is.
If you say Belgium can make its own policy, you are almost certainly making an off the cuff comment. There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of Europe-wide rules and regulations on transit that limit what Belgium can do. Belgium has to work across borders just like Massachusetts does. From Directive 95/19 on safety certification to Directive 2005/47 on the working conditions of workers on services that happen to cross a border. Since 2007 every European railway undertaking
is able to off er rail freight services on every line
in every EU country.
It is a mistake to paint a picture where Belgium has unlimited unilateral decision making powers.
> Why is Australian public transit so much better than American public transit?
I would guess it's because Australia is, like, 99% uninhabited and uninhabitable or borderline uninhabitable[1], which probably means they can focus resources almost exclusively on the few densely populated areas. Additionally Australia's urban population seems to be significantly higher than America's (~89% vs ~80% according to 5 seconds of Googling I just did) so there's probably greater political will for investing in urban areas, and that political will probably also isn't resisted/sabotaged by an electoral system that grants hugely disproportionate representation to non-urban areas that have little to gain from realistic/economically sensible investments in public transportation.
so USA has poorer public transport than Europe because the latter has much more uniform population distribution; USA also has poorer public transport than Australia because the latter has much more skewed population distribution.
Public transit matters where people live. Australia, quite clearly, can more easily focus on good transportation in the small percentage of its land mass where people live.
My state, about the same land area as France has a population density of 39/sq-km, right at the median value for the states. France has density of 122/sq-km. Population density is lower here, where people actually live, than in many locations in Europe or Australia. This may, in part, explain public transportation issues in the USA.
If you want to hold America to the same standard as Australia, try finding public transportation between Sydney and Adelaide, Alice Springs, or Darwin. (There isn't any.) In the US you at least can take Amtrak to cross those kinds of distances (even if it's cheaper and faster by orders of magnitude to just take a plane instead). It's fine to point out that America's public transportation is severely lacking (which it very obviously is), but being dismissive and reductive of the pertinent facts and realities isn't a good look, and it isn't helpful to public discourse.
It's the Goldilocks syndrome. Population density has to be juuuust right to result in American transit. It couldn't possibly be due to any other factors.........
Frankly, political lobbying is strangling your country. Are there any other developed democracies that allow the level of political capture through lobbying and political donations as the US? That alongside gerrymandering and the politicisation of the judiciary and whole legal process. Not how I'd set up a democracy. The USA was far ahead of it's time for over a hundred years in many aspects of it's system of politics and governance, but right now it seems like it's really fallen far behind.
Boston and Munich are about the same size; yet the public transportation system in Munich is significantly better (speed, coverage, comfort of stations and trains, accessibility) than that in Boston. That does not have to be. Instead they spent a couple of billions on the big dig.
In fairness, while the Big Dig was a total crapfest while in progress, the end result made a tremendous positive difference to the walk- and bike-ability of that area. It's still not perfect (four+ lanes of angry commuters), but it's not like they could just get rid of I-93.
Totally agreed on the dollars for transit part, though. Still way too much emphasis on making cars' lives easier in Boston at the expense of everyone else.
Every car at the moment contains a person. Objectifying people so it is easier to hate on them is not nice. People should realize by now that it is not just privileged rich assholes that drive cars. A well working personalized point-to-point transport system (cars plus roads) can save the person working 70 hours a week at two low paying jobs much precious time.
If you can afford to park in central Boston every day, you are almost certainly not that poor. A monthly parking pass is like $400-500. That's like a quarter of the pre-tax income from a full-time minimum wage job just to park at one of your jobs.
Cars just aren't a good use of space in the context of a city. A person in a car has multiplied their volume by 10 or 20. Sure, sometimes it's needed, for hauling some cargo, but I really think there are better things we could do with all the space required to support everyone owning a car (and, btw, I have one myself, so I'm not innocent) so that they can sit in traffic twice daily and a few times on weekends.
Not to mention that Belgium's governance is composed of several governments that are semi-hostile to each other and must compromise with the rest of the country as well.
Secondarily, Belgium can define it's own national policy, while MA must compromise with the rest of the country, including CA, WY, MT, and NY, all of which have very different economic and practical concerns.
The US's size is not a unique problem, but, it is a problem, and the governmental structure we have chosen does pose some unique problems.