I can't find any recent statistics, however, I keep finding references that suggest the U.S. automobile per capita rate is actually lower than most Western European countries, and most mega cities, meaning they own more personal vehicles per person than we do. That surprises me. But the reasonings were they have a larger middle class than the U.S. But if they have more cars, why do they have more mass transit? Couple reasons listed were they tend to make shorter trips by foot, bike, bus or train than we do. Their fuel costs are higher. Their taxes are higher. Their road taxes come from different sources than our road taxes. Their mass transit lines are government owned. Our original mass transit lines like trolleys, inter urban lines, etc... were privately owned and went out of business. We're also spread out more than they are with suburbs. On TBN alone, think about how many people talk about how far their nearest neighbor is, how far it is to a store, etc... There is no mass transit in the suburbs, and the few places where there is, few people want to wait for a train or bus. Heck, I had a city bus line running right in front of this house for about 15 years. I could have walked out to my mailbox and flagged one down every 20 minutes 7am-5pm, and every half hour 5pm to 9pm Monday-Saturday. They moved the line a block over 10 years ago. But still, guess how many times I road that bus? ZIPPO. Let's face it.... Americans are all about convenience and "my time".
Once in a while, I'll take my bike and ride down to Autozone or the hardware store to pick up something small. But there's a good chance my bike would get stolen at Autozone or I'd be accosted by someone on the way. They hardware store, not so much. It's not "in town".
Another example is that here in South Bend, they've made huge attempts to promote bicycling. They put in bike lanes all over town. Smart streets that are more bike and pedestrian friendly, etc... yet after 4-5 years of it, I rarely see someone on a bike. They did bring in Lime Bikes a few years ago. They seemed to get used heavily at first, but most of them got broken, stolen, thrown in the river, etc... and they pulled them out of town after a couple years. We still find them lying in the bushes.
Anyhow, Americans outside of tight urban areas shun mass transit. Even if it makes cost-sense, they value their time and convenience over their money.
Now I gotta go pick up some donuts with my '93 Suburban at the 7-11 that's literally 450 yards away as the crow flies .... :licking:
