> Places could be designed where it's uncommon to need to go 20 miles...
Sure, but that's not the same as saying people will want to live there.
This is really the underlying problem with the whole mass transit discussion: mass transit proponents start with the premise that mass transit is preferable to driving, and then deduce what kinds of living and working arrangements will make mass transit work well. Then they assume that everyone can be forced to adopt those living and working arrangements, whether they want to or not.
Btw, this is also true of proponents of driving: they start with the premise that driving is preferable, and then assume everyone can be forced to adopt living and working arrangements that make driving work well, whether they want to or not. But of course an even better answer would be to let people's preferences for living and working arrangements determine what sort of transportation to build, not the other way around.
> How much of that 20 mile commute is through parking lots? Agriculture? Suburban sprawl? Undeveloped land?
My commute is through fairly densely populated suburbs of a large metropolitan area. Most of the suburbs date from before sprawl became a thing, so they are more compact than most suburbs; but they are also poorly designed compared to more recent suburbs--they are highly suboptimal for driving and walking and public transportation. For that reason, many people (including me) do not want to live in those older, denser suburbs, and are willing to trade a longer commute for more living space and better designed communities. (Other people are starting to move back into the even more densely populated city areas, where walking and mass transit work at least tolerably well. But that requires accepting much less living space for the same money.)
I should also point out another solution to the transportation problem, at least for commuting: telework. I expect that to become more popular as an alternative to large investments in transportation infrastructure. Many jobs do not require physical presence, at least not all day, every day, and the cost of building out high speed internet, while not negligible, is a lot less than the cost of building and maintaining highways, railways, etc.
You choose to live in an auto-dependent place, and that's fine. However, we've made it difficult or impossible to build places that aren't auto-dependent. This is often done at the behest of car owners without regard for the negative impact on those who would rather not be car owners themselves. It also subsidizes driving at the expense of other modes of transport, as well as increasing housing cost.
Enforced density maximums and parking minimums reduce walkability by increasing trip distance, make neighborhoods more dangerous by increasing car speeds, and increase housing costs by reducing the amount of buildings that can exist in a given piece of land. If I want to build a restaurant in downtown LA, I have to add parking even if I only want to serve my local neighborhood, because suburban voters think I should pay for their driving convenience.
Here's one of countless examples - a restaurant opening in LA (near transit, no less!) has been forced to provide 21 parking spots. To do it, they're demolishing housing next door. This is in a city where the mayor says he's doing something about housing costs.
> we've made it difficult or impossible to build places that aren't auto-dependent. This is often done at the behest of car owners without regard for the negative impact on those who would rather not be car owners themselves.
Yes, there are places where this is true. There are also places where planning is done at the behest of mass transit proponents without regard for the negative impact on those who would rather not use mass transit themselves.
Sure, but that's not the same as saying people will want to live there.
This is really the underlying problem with the whole mass transit discussion: mass transit proponents start with the premise that mass transit is preferable to driving, and then deduce what kinds of living and working arrangements will make mass transit work well. Then they assume that everyone can be forced to adopt those living and working arrangements, whether they want to or not.
Btw, this is also true of proponents of driving: they start with the premise that driving is preferable, and then assume everyone can be forced to adopt living and working arrangements that make driving work well, whether they want to or not. But of course an even better answer would be to let people's preferences for living and working arrangements determine what sort of transportation to build, not the other way around.
> How much of that 20 mile commute is through parking lots? Agriculture? Suburban sprawl? Undeveloped land?
My commute is through fairly densely populated suburbs of a large metropolitan area. Most of the suburbs date from before sprawl became a thing, so they are more compact than most suburbs; but they are also poorly designed compared to more recent suburbs--they are highly suboptimal for driving and walking and public transportation. For that reason, many people (including me) do not want to live in those older, denser suburbs, and are willing to trade a longer commute for more living space and better designed communities. (Other people are starting to move back into the even more densely populated city areas, where walking and mass transit work at least tolerably well. But that requires accepting much less living space for the same money.)
I should also point out another solution to the transportation problem, at least for commuting: telework. I expect that to become more popular as an alternative to large investments in transportation infrastructure. Many jobs do not require physical presence, at least not all day, every day, and the cost of building out high speed internet, while not negligible, is a lot less than the cost of building and maintaining highways, railways, etc.