Except that having more car traffic induces more pollution, more casualties, and more time spent unproductively (you can do other things on public transit, or get exercise commuting by bike), whereas more book reading has few downsides.
Roads are not only for commuting.
What can I do on public transit that people don't do in a car in traffic?
See the problem is that they do, right before they drive into a pedestrian or stationary object.
Tell me, anti car fundamentalists, what are the odds that happens in a waymo?
Large groups of people are simply not safe, as police are not empowered to remove problem people.
You basically ensures your transit system will remain shitty forever, but that is easily fixable. The more good actors that use it the cheaper fixing it gets per person, you can have people who clean and security remove such bad actors at low cost since so small fraction are causing bad events or pissing where they shouldn't. Good people overwhelmingly outnumber bad people in the real world.
When was the last time you saw women avoid grocery stores because they are afraid of getting harassed? Well used public transit is that level, it isn't something women worry much about compared to many other much larger threats. There is no reason at all for public transit to be worse in terms of harassment than grocery stores are, its just that USA choose to let their public transit become shit.
It’s clear that you don’t have much concern for the harassment experienced by those woman columnists you read, so I don’t think there much more I can say here. I imagine if you were to have any direct experience at all with the problem, your position would be different.
That all said: what’s your upside? What do you gain which you consider to be worth these women whom you do not know sacrificing their safety?
> What can I do on public transit that people *don't* do in a car in traffic?
was an intentional and funny word choice to include terrible drivers doing the things you listed.