> A huge portion of Europe was destroyed.(and consequently rebuilt) in WWI and WWII, which are both firmly in the post-car era. They rebuilt with an emphasis on trains. Where they didn't, or in later years when they chose instead to invest in car development, some of them are now turning back to human-centric development [1].

The cities were already established. They weren't repopulating the continent from scratch.

> In terms of space-occupation in cars vs buses (or trains), mass transit absolutely wins. This is a trivial argument.

Yes, but space-occupation is a foolish thing to optimize for in an environment that isn't constrained by space. This is a trivial argument.

> "Packed into them like cattle", I'll grant you rush hour gets crowded, but you'll spend less time on the trains than you would trying to cram that many people through the highway. See also the "induced demand" problem of highways.

I spend quite a lot less time driving than I would if I took the trains. This is true virtually everywhere in Chicago, and Chicago only has only 3-4 main highways (which is to say it's not an especially car-friendly city and it's 5th ranked for public transit). Most of the time, it's twice as fast to drive as to take public transit, but if you have a transfer it can easily be 4 times slower than driving.

> Moreover, while you're not using your car, it's taking up space doing nothing. While I'm not using the subway, it's working to shuttle the other 1.6 million people who use it (that number varies wildly depending on your city, notably).

Agreed that cars are less space-efficient, disagree that space-efficiency is the paramount variable.

> Similarly, why is it when we have traffic issues the argument is always "build more lanes! Improve the roads!" But when transit has throughout problems we say "Look, this is why transit never works, and we should invest in roads instead!" You haven't done this overtly, but that idea underlies your argument: cars are better, we shouldn't waste our money on transit.

This isn't my argument at all. I'm not universally against public transit--it makes sense in some places and in those places it should be improved and expanded. My whole thesis is that different places have different constraints and thus we shouldn't expect "public transit" to be a panacea.

> As for being uncomfortable or dealing with less-than-savory people on mass transi, you're absolutely right that those are unpleasant experiences, and being able to use a car does help avoid them... Just like moving to a wealthier part of town or building a highway to keep the riffraff out would help avoid them, but none of those solve the underlying problem.

I didn't claim that driving solves social problems, only that it lets people control their own environments. I can't get my city to police or clean public transit appropriately, and I certainly can't get them to fix the underlying social problems; however, I can control my commuting environment by opting to drive. I'm happy to revisit public transit if/when we can solve poverty and mental healthcare, but until that utopia arrives, driving is a nice alternative.

> We shouldn't avoid using transit, or not have transit, because it accidentally functions as a haven for the homeless or mentally unwell or destitute. We should address those failings of our society by providing for those people, the better to enable our public systems to fulfill their original designed function.

These are orthogonal issues. Me driving (or not) doesn't stop my society from addressing its issues. I appreciate that people are more likely to advocate for issues that are visible to them, but that will probably look like cracking down on these people rather than solving ultimate causes (and anyway, our cities have a whole lot of people taking public transit already and yet these issues persist while other parts of the country have fewer problems).

> You being able to escape the flawed public systems and escape to your private spaces (car, house, etc) because you have the money to do so is not an indictment of that systems failings, but of your empathy for your fellow citizens.

I grew up working class, and it doesn't take a lot of money to escape the burden of public transit. We should absolutely expand the franchise to more people, however. Moreover, whether I take public transit or not has no bearing on my willingness to improve society. Please don't make assumptions about my motives, it's rude and unnecessary, and it violates site guidelines.