> The only thing that's missing is the political will, and that's because US politics has been bought by the oil industry, which benefits from inefficient transportation.

That's just not true, and I'm a bit tired of the tendency online to blame "big bad boogeyman conspiracy" whenever it's convenient.

Yes, the auto and related industries have had huge impact on the design of our cities that now seems really unfortunate. But I don't think it was some big, evil master plan. People seem to forget that for a really long time people loved driving their cars.

Just compare old vs. new cities in the US. Older cities (think NYC, Boston, Chicago) generally are a lot more dense with comparatively great (though unfortunately not always well maintained) public transportation. When other "post WWII" cities boomed, though, people wanted space out in the burbs, they wanted a private car. It's only relatively recently (last 30 years or so) that there has really been a re-evaluation of all the downsides to that sprawl and being trapped in long commutes.

In Austin, TX, our public transportation is generally really bad and there has been a huge push to build more of it. At this point though, the geography of Austin and existing land use patterns make the cost of doing so enormous. And we've built a ton of protected bike lanes in the past couple decades, but it's also been over 105F the past two weeks, so it's not hard to see why a car is pretty essential here.

Yes, I also wish things had developed differently. But comparing Amsterdam with most cities in the US is just a silly exercise in general that accomplishes nothing.