I have a further reflection on John Hinderer's musings below about public transportation and the widespread preference for private automobiles, even among the poor. John wrote: "When people can afford to drive cars, they prefer to do so." I'd add, even when they can't afford it, they prefer it.
As a world traveler, I'll share my most vivid memory of the truth of this adage. It happened in mainland China in the mid-1980s. We spent perhaps 10 days in-country touring, staying in hotels and sightseeing.
At some earlier time China had built a vast number of "walking tractors." These resembled nothing so much as an rototiller on steroids, minus the rotor. These had a liquid-cooled motor mounted on two driven wheels and were designed to pull a plow through the earth.
The operator did not ride, but walked behind steering with two handles somewhat resembling motorcycle handlebars. We saw scores of these but only 1 or 2 being used as intended, plowing fields.
Most had been converted to conveyances. Where the plow was supposed to attach they'd attached the drawbar of a wagon. Across the front of the wagon a board provided a bench on which to sit, steering with the handle bars.
They'd be chugging down the road, invariably sans radiator cap so a plume of steam wafted from the filler pipe, laden with people and goods going to market. A combination omnibus and pickup truck, cobbled together out of what was on hand. Running, one can almost be certain, on gasoline diverted from state enterprises.
I'll never forget the sight. It is the best example of the indomitable will to individual transportation, in the face of near-overwhelming odds, I've ever seen or expect to see.
Two decades later the unbelievable swarm of thousands of light motorcycles in supposedly Communist Vietnam, some carrying whole families at once, made the same point. People want their own wheels; urban planners would be well advised to stop hating and denying that fact.
