Seriously, why is this idea being thrown around? It's not based in reality, and just fuels into pessimism. I'm American, so I'll mostly focus on what I'm seeing here.
There has been so much progress, even just over the past decade. I think the reason that it feels like not much is being done is because the United States is so Massive. Even just New York can contain Beligum, Switzerland and the netherlands.
Looking at the US on a macro scale could give someone a picture of a country eternally doomed to have shitty transit and suburban sprawl forever. Thankfully, we have a beautiful think called local government.
There are a good number of places that you can go in the US that are very walkable and have good transit. Sure, it's not on the level of Europe, but it's definitely a good starting point if we're talking about progress. Especially if we're talking about progress within our lifetimes.
There are a lot of cool projects going on in the US right now, such as new rail lines, rail extensions, new BRT lines, and work being done on density. And of course roped into that we can't forget about the massive California High-Speed Rail project, which if successful could have major implications for rail in the United States at large.
Is this enough? No. But it is real progress, and a sign that we're at the beginning of real change in this country for transit and walkability.
And if you still think the US is shit and you really feel inclined to move out of your current suburban hell hole, you don't even have to leave the US to do so. There are cities where you can go today in the US where you don't have to own a car and can get around by walking. Not everything is a 6 lane stroad with giant parking lots and dead strip malls. We have DC, Philly, Boston and NYC as prime examples, which may not seem like much but NYC alone has 8.8 million people and could sure as shit fit way more.
Sure, we may never live to see the whole US become the netherlands, but I don't think it's unrealistic to think that certain places in the US could be seriously be at that level within our lifetimes.
Not really it's the reality that the necessary lifestyle changes necessary to combat our effects on the climate will take a long time, longer than we really have any ability to fix, compounded with a huge segment of our population that doesn't believe climate change exists, and their representstives actively writing legislation that dampens any forward momentum on dealing with it, and some very fanatic religious peiple see it as the Book of Revalations being fulfilled.
I think on the climate change issue we are truly fucked and there's nothing we can do (although I still don't say we give up). I don't see how this has to do with transit though, and it might actually help spur transit development in an ironic way.
A large part of the climate change problem comes from how absolutely dependent on cars we as a nation are. Fuck Cars focuses on climate change with using the lens of transit, but it's interconnected with suburban sprawl, low density housing with no way to walk to walk anywhere, the perpetual underfunding of public transit, the stranglehold car manufacturers have over various segments of our society.
Ah, thanks for the explanation