So I want to know, why do people in midsized cities say that public transit works fine in a city like New York but could never work in their city. Because like there is nothing stopping the construction of a Light Rail from happening in Louisville or Columbus or Boise and arguments like density are honestly invalid to me as Light rail leads to densification of areas around it
Could be fiscal conservativism. I lived in Lexington, KY, for years, and the prevailing attitude was that the public transit system should pay for itself, and it didn't make sense to run a bus that was mostly empty. That meant they wanted to cut the system, removing routes with not many riders.
Completely backwards, of course, but also not an uncommon attitude in smaller cities
It is practically impossible for a transit system to be usable to the general public regularly and pay for itself, that’s also a nonsense argument to me honestly
