> public transportation doesn't work for people with pets, in many situations for people with children
Do you mean the millions of people who do this every day don't exist? You might personally prefer that and it's certainly an opinion which has been lavishly subsidized in the U.S. but this is a lifestyle choice, not a truth.
> people with various health issues.
How many of the people who cannot take transit are capable of safely driving cars? Public transportation — whether bus/rail mass transit or on-demand access services — is key for a large number of people who cannot drive themselves and a large number of people who could but are not affluent enough to afford the $10K/year or more that personal car ownership (considerably more if you need a vehicle customized with assistive technologies).
Again, you obviously have an opinion on this issue but that doesn't make such blanket statements less incorrect.
It isn't a preference nor choice. It is direct experience. More than half of my life i was using public transportation in USSR/Russia, no issues, we'd take our cats/dogs when needed. Not the case in US.
>How many of the people who cannot take transit are capable of safely driving cars?
It doesn't matter how many (though a lot of people for example develop back issues by mid age and beyond so prolonged walking/standing is much harder than sitting in the car especially after a workday). The point is you just dismiss them. And this is why those tone-deaf public transportation proponents like you aren't going anywhere - you dismiss all those supposedly small groups and thus as a result left with pretty much no support.
And just a bit of meta to illustrate the point - notice that i'm telling you about the issues with your approach and instead of addressing them, you're dismissing them outright as supposedly just "my preferences".
This is pure projection: I was pointing out that millions of people's daily life contradicted the absolute statement you made. If you'd said “doesn't work for many people” I would have agreed: it's no secret that the U.S. has heavily subsidized car-centric design for the last century and there are many people living in neighborhoods which don't even have sidewalks, much less transit or bike paths.
This has also encouraged many people to think that they must drive even if it's not a great choice: in the city I live in, it's not uncommon for people to cling to the habits they acquired growing up and trying to drive everywhere even though it means they're paying considerably more to sit in traffic while their friends who biked or took the train wonder why they're late.
There isn't a single answer here but the important thing is remembering that these are choices. Giving private car owners exclusive use of public land might be a popular choice but it's not a law of nature, and when it doesn't work well it's reasonable to question whether it's the right design for the context. There's no reason to think that the same answers will be true in rural areas, suburbs, and dense urban cores.
