> I didn't see 9 lanes roads in Tokyo and it's bigger than NYC.
That's because Tokyo and NYC are different cities in different countries, populated by people with very different preferences.
My point was not that NYC's public transportation and highway systems are optimal by the criterion of "optimal" that the poster I responded to appears to be using. My point was that the fact that NYC doesn't look optimal to him is not that NYC has simply failed to consider public transportation as an alternative. It's that, as I said, NYC is populated by people with different preferences from his, and NYC's public transportation and highway systems reflect those preferences.
That's because NYC and most of America is dysfunctional to the point where people think that a 18 lane road is not just necessary but actually a good idea. Not a single place in the US has good public transport. Maybe good to US standards but thats a low bar.
> That's because NYC and most of America is dysfunctional
Not to those of us who live in America. That's the nice thing about having different countries, and different states, cities, etc. within countries: it enables people with widely different definitions of "functional" to all find a place to live, instead of everybody having to conform to somebody's fixed idea of how people should live.
That's because Tokyo and NYC are different cities in different countries, populated by people with very different preferences.
My point was not that NYC's public transportation and highway systems are optimal by the criterion of "optimal" that the poster I responded to appears to be using. My point was that the fact that NYC doesn't look optimal to him is not that NYC has simply failed to consider public transportation as an alternative. It's that, as I said, NYC is populated by people with different preferences from his, and NYC's public transportation and highway systems reflect those preferences.