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Why tunnels tho? Or rather, why single occupancy vehicles in tunnels? It just feels like a public transit system with extra steps…

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Because a lot of people will never want to take public transit even if it was more convenient than it is now. In the US outside of NY, Chicago, SF, and perhaps a few others public transit sucks. Even adding 5 new light rail lines isn’t going to change things in Houston when most people want suburban life and only go downtown for a sporting event or concert.

I’m not sure if your first sentence is true, but it’s an interesting idea. My gut says even the most staunchly anti-local transit folks would still gladly use public transit in a city that has a good system (e.g. if they were to visit Paris, or Tokyo, etc).

Saying people would never use transit even if it were more convenient doesn’t match the pattern of what I’ve observed actual humans do. It would be nice if there was a study on this.

Visiting vs living is very different. Everyone I worked with in Rome drove to work, but the people I worked with were admittedly of a certain group.

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