There's different ways of living a life, and the current trend shouldn't be seen as car demonization. I see it more as a new generation seeing the current US car-centric society and pushing for a better (for the life they want to live) alternative.
>Good public transit is unfortunately the exception in many places and not the rule.
Then let's make it better! :-)
>” Then let's make it better! :-)”
Why respond with such condescension? And, why follow it up with such a hollow and glib call to action?
This is a fixable problem. The biggest issue is...
> Cars are still needed in many use cases.
... the people who say this and, as a result, block any attempt to improve public transit whatsoever. Even worse, some are apt to frame it a "war on cars" because they're spending money on transportation that's not going to cars.
Those trips might be east to the small city. Or west to the mid-sized down. There's a bus in those directions, about once every 2 hours, last one at 6pm so useless for evening activities, or commuting further on the train. It's just gone past my front door now, it's rare to see more than 2 or 3 passengers on board other than at college time.
My options for going further - to London or Manchester 1) bus to the station, train to london, tube across london, then return on tube, train, and get a taxi back from the station 2) drive to the station in the morning, park, drive back in the evening (last train arrives about midnight) 3) drive the entire journey, under 3 hours so about the same amount of time
Same if I go to Manchester and Birmingham, but the drive is about half the time of public transport.
They might be south towards the big village. Or north to another big town. There's no bus services there.
Now you might say "just put on more public transport". My wife drives to work at a hospital 25 miles away. I suspect you could meet the entire daily demand from my village in that direction with a single minibus. The route doesn't pass any other major settlements, it's south-west down the lanes. How frequently would a bus need to run to be useful? Every hour? How early would it start? How late would it run? How many people would it take on each journey, and how much would it cost to run? How much pollution would it cause? What benefits would there be?
Public transport doesn't work below a certain density. If you want to depopulate the country and put everyone in tower blocks in the city - leaving the country for the rich - then just be honest about it.
I don't want to do this. But the fact that you immediately go to the suggestion that I do is emblematic of the "war-on-cars" mentality. Just so much as mention wanting to improve public transit and you get a screed that concludes that I'm an evil person with ulterior motives.
No, public transit doesn't work everywhere. I'm not going to even try to pretend that it does. And consequently, I'm not going to attempt to propose it in places where it doesn't work. So why do the "war-on-car" people so vehemently oppose public transit when its proposed in the places where it very obviously works?