And what would take for it to be noticed?
No offense intended to OP, but anyone who thinks the world works this way is hopelessly naive about the system we live in.
When it comes down to it, the reason all of these issues exist comes down to Capitalism (Imperialism, Neoliberalism, Fascism, NIMBYism, w/e flavor you want).
Good public transit is a great example because there are so many reasons we don’t have it and all of them come down to Capitalism.
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the failure of our Healthcare system for the poor, unhoused, and uninsured means that severely mentally ill people make public transit feel unsafe. Ditto for criminalization of addiction and high poverty in general.
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The American government’s reliance on the Petrodollar to control world trade promotes oil-based transportation options, especially inefficient ones that take more oil (since the goal is increased consumption, not efficiency).
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A general lack of tenant’s rights and a tendency for local governments to favor landholders and and business owners over working-class renters (who tend to be more transient and are less likely to buy out local politicians) means that more attention is given to individualized transport (car infrastructure) and less to transport methods more suited to higher density. Not to mention the fear the petite bourgeoisie have towards poor people, who might potentially use public transport to invade their walled gardens.
There are so many reasons even on top of these. They all come down to Capitalism; and, no, to the Liberals of Lemmy, I don’t mean markets. Markets can do a lot of good when it comes to making efficient public transport, when managed correctly. The issue is the power that those with money (and not just the billionaires; the petty millionaires who own a couple strip malls is just as bad when it comes to opposition towards public transport) exert over our lives and governments.
I have found that most of the problems that have been around for a long time and whose solutions seem “so easy if only anyone would bother to do it”, are not actually that easy once you actually think about it.
With 7 billion current humans, and many more dead, it is unlikely any problem was not noticed.
Sometimes it was intentionally setup to be a bother, other times the fix takes more resources than a single person can apply.
/lecture ended
So many great opportunities for light rail around here, especially because of the geographical constraints. If there were big subsidies for doing it, I think the city would get interested.
Americans have been so conditioned for the car, yet don’t realize that lacking transit is one of the largest drivers of wealth inequality.
Cities are expensive, so people move to the suburbs. Suburbs though being all single family we only built roads. Roads only have so much capacity, so traffic is terrible and there’s a limit for how large our cities can get before commutes are over an hour. Prices go up because the jobs are in the city and people have to figure out how long they can tolerate commuting.
Or, we built transit, which would create more housing further away from the city with fast connections into the city. Housing near the city is of course still worth more, but people can choose to live even farther away, so there are many less housing shortages.
Vs Portland/Vancouver WA, where Vancouver WA is a smallish town on the outskirts of Portland. They need to replace a highway bridge that’s already decaying. Portland is happy to pitch in more than their share to pay for it IF they can extend their light rail network across it to connect Vancouver to transit. Vancouver is screaming they don’t want it because homeless! Thugs! (Black people). Shooting themselves right in the foot. I’ve asked them how long it takes them to five in. “Well sometimes over an hour”. Morons.
imho people notice the problems; it’s getting the people with power to care enough to do something about the problems.
