Public transportation is (almost always) an inferior good. If one country is consuming more of an inferior good than another country, it means that they are poorer than that other country.
See London or Paris or even New York City. Just getting everyone a car only creates cities which are contain more parking lots than buildings and green spaces.
When the economy is poorly developed, people have to do many things on their own, because comparable services are not available on the market for a reasonable price. A more developed economy enables a higher level of specialization. When people can buy the services they need from someone else, they can spend their time and money on higher-value activities.
The right comparison is not public transportation vs. private car, but driving your own vehicle vs. buying transportation as a service. The latter can include anything from city buses to chartered jets.
America got rich, people bought cars. That's the way it went down.
All you have to do is visit Seoul or Tokyo to see how valuable and useful public transportation is, when it's done correctly and city planning takes it into account. Even if one is rich, actually driving and parking is a complete hassle most of the time in cities. It's so much more convenient to take a bus or train.
Cities are not designed around the rich or the ultra-rich. Transportation systems are not designed around the rich or the ultra-rich. If all of us had infinite money we would just use private jets or something, but that doesn't mean that jets are strictly superior to cars... this is an apples to oranges comparison.
As someone who's lived in Chicago, Seoul, and South Carolina, I can say that our public transportation systems are wholly inferior to Korea and Japan's public transportation systems. It's not strictly a matter of money or not, it's a multifaceted cultural topic.
The whole idea of ranking transportation systems by what rich people do or don't do makes absolutely zero sense.
That would mean cars were an inferior good over that income range.
-> _For the ultra-rich_, trains and other public transportation are inferior options.
This is completely different from saying that public transportation is an inferior good overall. It's not that simple.
Who decides what is beneficial for me in your opinion, me, you or the government?
> Inferiority, in this sense, is an observable fact relating to affordability rather than a statement about the quality of the good. As a rule, these goods are affordable and adequately fulfill their purpose, but as more costly substitutes that offer more pleasure (or at least variety) become available, the use of the inferior goods diminishes. Direct relations can thus be drawn from inferior goods to socio-economic class. Those with constricted incomes tend to prefer inferior goods for the reason of the aforementioned observable inferiority.
Many of these goods are eschewed by the rich due to cultural / status phenomena that are constructed artificially by people trying to sell so-called luxury goods.
In the context of how to plan our cities, this has little bearing on the discussion. Should we use mechanical clocks to keep time because when people get rich they're more likely to buy watches with mechanical movements? Certainly those have emerged as a status symbol, but that's entirely constructed and could be otherwise. It's not based on any inherent superiority.
I'm not sure where you get that. If public transportation is an inferior good, then to the extent we need people planning our cities those planners need to take into account that the demand for public transportation will decrease as people get wealthier.
Rich people don't ride the bus. Maybe that's OK?
> Rich people don't ride the bus. Maybe that's OK?
It's not practical to have a dense urban environment where everyone drives everywhere, because cars and car infrastructure take up an incredible amount of physical space. So if people want to live in those areas (and clearly many people do - they're willing to pay a premium for it), then a good percentage of people in those areas need to walk, bike, or take mass transit. If they don't, the city will shut down due to gridlock and nobody will get anywhere.
And when they move there, the wealthier they are, the less likelier they are to use public transportation. Because public transportation is an inferior good.
>> (and clearly many people do - they're willing to pay a premium for it)
Not true, high density housing costs more per square foot than single family detached and sells at a discount to it. People are willing to pay a premium for single family detached housing.