> We could go on and on about that. Sure, ballpark, first cut, you are correct. But I don't see a better alternative.

Well there is an alternative. You build more dense, mixed-use developments where people can walk, bike, or if needed take the bus to where they need to go. Have rentals like Car 2 Go and Lyft and whatnot. Trains aren't the only solution, they are part of a suite of available solutions. I don't advocate getting completely rid of cars, but building 6-lane highways is simply unsustainable and undesirable.

> And for the costs, IIRC, and again, this is not my job and I don't have good data, nearly cars pay for themselves from when people buy the cars, buy gas, pay for maintenance and insurance, when the gas taxes are used to build the roads, etc.

Ok so let's say that everybody pays for their cars and whatever. Yes you pay for the maintenance and yes you pay for the gas. I'll even submit that you pay for the tax and that directly funds roads. My question to you now is, whether or not that is an economically justifiable policy to maintain. Let's say you buy a cheap new car at like $15,000. Ok, so now you're out that money, + interest. Now you have to pay out of pocket for tires, gas, and insurance. All of that money is, as far as I'm concerned, wasted, because if we zoned better we could have situations where you work close to where you live, and you don't have to drive everywhere. Now what are you saving? All of that cost. On top of that, we haven't even broached the subject of teenager deaths (let along just general destruction of life and property from accidents) and the hospital costs associated with those accidents, nor have we discussed the health impact of pollution, sitting on your fat lazy ass everyday, nor have we touched on the environmental impact from extracting all these resources that aren't needed. You sitting here saying "I'm unconcerned" is kind of alarming. How can you be unconcerned with any of this?

> But I don't know of an alternative unless we are all going to live in small apartments in high rise buildings in dense cities. And we will still need roads for trucks, taxis, and likely busses.

The problem is that you have this picture of what urban means, (small apartment and idk, what else?) when it's not the case. I have no desire to live in a shoebox either. Yet I still live in the middle of a downtown in a large city in the US. How can you reconcile this? The fact is that urban sprawl is almost as undesirable as suburban sprawl. But mixed-use neighborhoods solve for both. Check out this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_the_walkable_city

> The US is a big country. Cars are working great. I see no better alternative.

Than you simply aren't thinking. I don't mean to sound rude here but it's pretty easy to imagine a far superior solution to gigantic unused parking lots, fiery deaths and destruction, and 45 minutes (each way) drives stuck in traffic. Why is it that every other first-world country on the planet can get along fine with public transportation, but we can't? If you want to say "America is so big" my reply to you is good, and we should keep the open space open for better uses than gigantic, poorly built homes. You can have the best of both worlds. Hell you can even still have a car. But you cannot have a world where everybody does the single-occupant commute to their 9-5 everyday, not for long at least.

> Passenger trains? NYC and DC for commuters. Secret? Both were awash in money and could buy whatever they wanted.

Hmm. I wonder why that's the case?

Also, I don't dispute that you are paying $370/year for car insurance, but you're far below average anywhere in the country, and nearly 4x cheaper than the average for New York. If you have any contrary stats by all means post them, but this is like the first thing I found: https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-cost-of-insurance