If only we had invented and built some sort of alternative mode of collective transportation. Maybe it could be in tunnels and ride on metallic rails. It would serve many people and make periodic stops to the same locations instead of the highway clusterf- we have today. Sad that we don’t, but a man can dream though. A man can dream.
So? Let’s compare just one American city to the Netherlands, the entire country. Because an American city isn’t bigger then our entire country.
I live in the centre, in Utrecht. I can take a train to Groningen or Maastricht, the 2 cities furthest away from where I live. I can bring my ebike on the train or take a public transit bike (so rental) at the station I arrive. Or I take the bus for the final part. Or when I go to Amsterdam, I take the subway and/or tram. Or when I go to a rural area, I take the strain, then bus or bike. Within 2 hours I can reach any city in my country with public transportation or 3.5 hours for any rural location. I can reach any part of Berlin in 7 hours. This is on the other side of Germany.
It’s the layers of public transportation which solves issues of being sprawled out or super dense. Sprawled out? Faster transportation, like trains, bus and subway. Super dense? Tram, bus, bike.
I understand many Americans don’t see it as a solution, as they have busses, trains and subways. But these networks are poorly planned. New York for example, all metro lines run to the centre making travel between suburbs a living hell. They have taxis, awesome, but they clutter the already cluttered streets even more. It’s so dumb.
See these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zysL_lkdtys on the design of Tokyo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP-G-inkkDg on the design of The Netherlands
You might say “but it’s impossible to change our cities to public transit heavy, walking and cycling friendly cities, we’re too far down the drain!”. No. You’re not. We designed Rotterdam, one of our largest cities, as an American city completely focused on cars (after it was wiped from the earth during the Second World War bombing by the nazis). It was shit. They changed the entire city to car unfriendly with the focus on walking and cycling, with public transit to support that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22ovt1EMULY