Why are conservatives so "pro-car"? And are the previous two posters old enough to own a car, and/or live in a large urban area? It's not that people don't want to own vehicles - it's just almost impossible in some settings. It's not that people choose to use unreliable and dirty public transit, it's the only option they have.
A lot of the issue is that the publican trasportation we do have is slow, not easily accessible, and often doesn't take you where you want to go. Consider when I lived in Cleveland Heights if I wanted to take the bus to Severence Center Mall, about 3 miles away:
-I would have to walk a half mile to the bus stop
-Wait for the one line of bus that comes every 45 minutes
-Pay $2.25 to get on the bus
-Wait on the bus about 25 minutes to go a whopping 4 miles
-Either get off the bus on the wrong side of the city building that they will write you a ticket if you walk through their grass or wait an extra 5 minutes for the bus to drive around the place, stopping about every 100 feet because they have like a million stops
-Then repeat the process on the way back, possibly waiting 45 minutes for the bus to come depending on the timing
Heck, that's not much faster than
walking, let alone driving.
Granted public transportation can be a decent option if you're going one of three places in Cleveland: Downtown, the airport, or university circle. But even if you use it to go there it's pretty hard to get buy without either having a car or having a friend who has a car and is willing to occasionally drive you places. Otherwise short trips can become an all-day event.
