Sometimes it looks like the Silicon Valley is trying to solve transit problems either against the laws of physics and economics or, alternatively, ignoring solutions that were there already in the 1800s.
The problem is that many American cities, including those in Silicon Valley, would need to be torn down and rebuilt for European- or Japanese-style transit to make sense. Everything is very spread out. Most people in London or Paris or Tokyo live within a short walking distance of a train station. In cities like LA, many people could walk over a mile from their house and only see other houses.
Because everything is so spread out, we would require many stations in suburban residential neighborhoods or nobody would have a station within walking distance of their home. However, those stations would only be useful to the small number of people who live in those neighborhoods because nobody else would have a reason to go there. It's hard to imagine those stations would get enough ridership to make economic sense.
So we are stuck with transit restricted to downtown areas, and if you want to go downtown or leave downtown you need a car. The Boring Company is attempting to recognize that reality and solve the "last mile problem" by turning cars themselves into public transit. It will be pretty cool if it works.
That, or the Old World is simply stuck with cities where no more roads can be built without tearing down many inhabited buildings, so people are forced to use smelly, uncomfortable public transport. I'd appreciate more honesty and less ideology in such debates.
and yet
> forced to use smelly, uncomfortable public transport
There is no need to public transport to be smelly and uncomfortable if enough money is spent on maintenance.
I live in Vienna, which has arguably some of the best maintained and expensive public transport. It's still smelly, because people. They forbid food (initially only smelly food, but signs - pictograms in the subway - show any/all types of food) recently because people complained and during last summer the administration handed out free deodorants to passengers.
Sorry, public transport IS uncomfortable and smelly, like most places with many people.
It's a mentality issue - Singapore and Japan are also famous for clean public transport, but in most countries it's simply not possible.
If you include London in "the Old World," it has the same horrible freeway congestion problems every other city does. Being European doesn't change the laws of physics.
A hundred years later, driving is a massive part of US culture, and we have trouble seeing the problem because that's "just how things are".
Honestly it's not hard to see why it succeeded. Back in the early postwar period, driving was cheap and easy, parking was plentiful, traffic was light, and the new interstate highway system made long-distance car travel practical.
Even if the motorist groups had not lobbied for it, cars would have taken over anyway because people liked them so much.