suburbs are cheaper to live in than cities

They are in my area and everywhere I've lived. Rent alone is 2x the price vs my area about 20 miles outside the city center, and property often has a larger gap. Basic needs like groceries and services are also cheaper.

The difference has closed a bit in the last couple years, but it's still cheaper in the suburbs, provided you have a decent way to get to work.

And yes, I think people do want to live in cities. I would if it made financial sense, and my coworkers are similar. But only like 10% of people in my office (that I interact with with to know) live within 10 min of my office, mostly due to cost, and that's with transit completely sucking to my office (it would take 2 hours by transit, vs 30 min by car). One lives an hour away by car!

force people to move to cities

Absolutely not! I'm merely saying we should make driving in cities more restrictive, to the point where it's faster for most people to use transit or ride a bike. That can drastically reduce traffic, infrastructure costs, and in many cases average commute time.

Americans don't want better public transportation

Pretty much everyone I've talked to that has visited Europe praises their train infrastructure, which works for tourists and commuters alike. And when I ask if they're interested in seeing the same here, they say it "wouldn't work here."

I really don't buy that argument. Yes, America is bigger, but we have very dense regions where transit absolutely makes sense. NYC's subways are world famous, so it's not like people are against mass transit, they just prefer the option that's more convenient and faster. In NYC, that's the subway, but much of the rest of the country has invested in their roads way more so transit tends to be a worse experience than driving.

I grew up near Seattle, and they finally put in a commuter rail line after decades of some of the worst traffic in the country. I now live near SLC, which had way better transit with a much smaller population over the same period. In fact, I think SLC is still way ahead of Seattle because the transit system actually works cohesively, vs in Seattle where there are like three different systems that don't quite line up. Utah's Frontrunner has ~2x the ridership vs Seattle's Sounder, despite the metro area being about 1/4-1/3 the size and both having a similar length (80-90 miles). And I'd argue that Utah's car culture is much stronger than Seattle's, and traffic is way better. If you build a good system, people will use it.

What we need is better transit lines to connect suburban and urban areas, and perhaps a handful of high speed rail options between close-ish metros. Amtrak is quite popular on the east coast because it connects major metros and is competitive with cars, and it's less popular in the west because of the opposite reason. Improve the service and people will use it.

I just drove from SLC to LA because it's cheaper than flying with my kids and I don't have to deal with airports; if there was a train that went there a little faster than my car for something that splits the difference in price vs an airplane, I would've taken it. I've talked to several people in my office, and they said they'd take a high speed train to Vegas or LA if it was cheaper than flying and faster than a car. That doesn't exist, so my coworkers drive.

Trains are even more American than the automobile imo, and the only reason cars won is because we didn't upgrade the trains and we installed a ton of roads and hid the costs in taxes. Trains cost less to operate than cars on roads (assuming we're factoring in road/rail maintenance), but they cost more to the average rider so they're less popular. It's not complicated, people are cost and time conscious, and trains haven't been keeping up with the subsidized roads.

'legislate away' people's desire to be independent

I don't think that's how people would actually behave if a more efficient option arrived.

Cars have a few functions in today's society, including:

• transportation - our cities are car centric
• status - probably won't change much
• utility - Costco runs and whatnot

The first is the "Independence" issue, but people have been quick to give up independence for convenience (e.g. streaming vs owning physical media, extended warranty vs knowing how to fix cars, broad acceptance of TSA so they don't need to worry about terrorists, etc). At the end of the day, people care far more about convenience than independence. How many people actually have food storage at home, or any survival knowledge?

The second two are similar, having the capability to do something yourself (even if you probably won't) is a form of status. But people are ordering more and more stuff to their homes instead of picking them up that guy utility argument is getting weaker and weaker. Just look at trucks' shrinking beds and growing cabins as evidence that people are really just after the status instead of actual utility or independence.

So we're really just talking about status here. And I think it's totally fine to keep a car parked in your garage to show off to friends or whatever, provided it's not clogging up highways or running over kids. Go ahead and take it out on weekends or whatever, just don't drive it to work (do you really want rock chips damaging your fancy truck anyway?).

So no, I reject all of that. If we built high quality transit, people do ride it. If we make getting downtown with a car more difficult than taking transit, even more will take transit and traffic will improve. It's that simple, we just need a few brave cities to prove it to the public.