See, http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/subway/
The D.C. metro system for example, is about as wide across geographically as the Seoul Subway (in other words, its service area is very similar). But its daily ridership is something like 1/10th the amount (800k vs 8million). On the long arms of the system, adding more stations won't necessarily increase the ridership because the population density of those areas is too low, a station in one of these outlying areas with parking decks might only see a couple thousand riders a day. At any rate, in most cases it's actually faster, cheaper and more convenient to drive all the way to your destination than to drive through rush hour to a station, fight for the limited parking then take the metro in.
"Just move further into the city then!" Is a sentiment I've heard quite a bit. But D.C. is not able to handle much more growth in density. By law no building can be higher than the Washington Monument, and even if that law were to be relaxed, it's unlikely to spur lots of tall, high density residential apartment buildings because there is a major airport right next door. So outlying areas like Silver Spring, MD and Arlington, VA end up with lots of high density growth. But at exorbitant pricing. Apartments 10 miles apart, in a relatively low density area like Northern Virginia or Southern Maryland can be as much as 3x the rental price of each other. Housing can be even worse.
While the East Coast of the U.S. is generally low density, it's almost all owned by someone. Lots and lots and lots of suburbs. Nearly any additions to a mass transit system requires heavy handed uses of eminent domain laws, which are always unpopular.
All of this to encourage people to ride mass transit.
But from the rider's perspective the equation makes no sense:
- Parking is expensive at the outlying stations, and even worse closer in
- Fare is expensive, I'm always surprised at how cheap mass transit is in other countries
- Added up, a single trip on a U.S. mass transit system can cost 2-3x the cost in gas and wear and tear on your vehicle.
- Many systems are relatively unreliable, the New York system is pretty good, and tends to route around problems pretty well, but later systems like D.C.s suffer from daily breakdowns, and single tracks, so a breakdown in one part of the system literally brings the entire system to a screeching halt. Resulting in hour long delays getting home.
- A trip on mass transit usually takes longer than just driving anyways, and in more crowded less pleasant conditions
- American cities tend to not be terribly walkable once you do get dumped off of a mass transit system. With few exceptions, like New York City, or Most of D.C. and Boston, walking in a typical American city is walking with a death wish. Crossing highways and major arteries full of high-speed traffic, few sidewalks, few pedestrian rights-of-way and on and on.
- Buses are also generally unpleasant, usually populated by people with vast, on-display, personal problems like drug addiction, homelessness, mental health problems, etc. Mostly because people without these problems have cars and simply drive.
Expanding on this basic idea for local mass transit, rail also stands a similarly poor chance. Outside of the Middle and Northern East Coast, rail is generally poor, and transit times are incredibly long. New York to Chicago for example is basically a 1-day trip by rail (overnight). But only a 3 hour flight. And those are relatively close cities by American Standards. By European standards that's further than London to Munich!
New York to Miami, on the same Coast, is a 31 hour trip by rail! But only 20 hours by car and 3 hours by plane. Which would you take?
New York to LA, across the continent takes several days. That's like taking a rail trip from Barcelona to Minsk.
The solution to the problem is thus usually phrased as "just throw down some more rail lines and start counting the jobs". Even more realistic people consider that, in an idealized world that would cost billions. But really, with the eminent domain considerations, massive restructuring of cities, de-suburbanization, rerouting of existing lines to be more efficient, easy transit to and from the system, parking, etc. we are more likely talking trillions of dollars.
So instead we get more limited visions like
- 1 more line on the D.C. metro over the next 20 years
- and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/18/map-of-potential-hi...
Which, while really fantastic, and a great start, won't affect the vast majority of the country.