It's the American way of "newer faster better easier" . Everyone continually tries to re-invent the wheel, so to speak, with regard to public transit. The push/pull between the auto/oil/carbon people and the green/renewable/alternative people is greater in this nation because of our wealth and our options. Because we are an industrious nation (like Europe) but we are floating on seas of hydrocarbons (unlike europe--- yes I realize Europe has some oil but not like us) and we are about as faithful as our options.
Cities that have tried mass transit in the US have, for the most part, been met with failure. Why? Infrastructure.
Europe is tiny. A three hour ride on a high speed rail can take a person from the Netherlands, through blegium, Germany and Luxembourg and into Paris. The east coast of America was designed much like Europe. Tiny, crammed together, narrow streets, and easily traversed without a car. The west is expansive and spread out. The Europeans use rail to go far away and bicycles within their own city.
The green/renewable/alternative energy people have taken ideas that were meant for European style city infrastructure and tried to make them work in spread out cities like Austin, Houston etc- and it's just not happening. People using scooters do so as a novelty or to try and virtue signal in some way and honestly, it's simply a fad.
Don't want to own a car because you want to help the environment? Ride your bike. But that requires too much effort for most people--- because they are lazy. This is simply a case of eating your cake and having it too-- and it doesn't work that way in our society.
Rant over.
