The complaint raised in a topical, new TikTok video will sound familiar to many Americans.
U.S. transportation priorities can appear tilted toward smarter cars rather than faster, cleaner systems built to carry lots of people at once at lightning speed.
Here’s what to know
In a video on TikTok, creator bonusmoles (@bonusmoles) said the U.S. is neglecting a leading form of mass transit even as money goes to technologies they believe could worsen congestion, space constraints, and daily life.
@bonusmoles Why are we ignoring the best form of mass transit and dumping billions into stuff that actively makes our lives worse?#greenscreen ♬ original sound – bonusmoles
As part of that argument, they cited a Chinese train that accelerates from zero to 497 miles per hour in 5.3 seconds, per reporting from Interesting Engineering.
Bonusmoles contrasted that with U.S. investment in “cybercabs and robo taxis and data centers and flock cameras,” arguing that autonomous taxis may be sold as futuristic but still put more cars into limited road and parking space.
They said that could mean a growing share of vehicles on the road have no passengers at all, adding to an existing space crunch.
“Like, as these get more popular and there’s more on the road, it means a larger and larger percentage of the other cars on the road are just gonna be empty,” bonusmoles suggested.
“Yet here in TN we’re getting toll roads (to be managed by a foreign company) instead of mass transit,” a commenter lamented.
Numerous other commenters said the same thing was true in their state, much to their frustration.
More background
To visualize the larger issue, the creator shared what they described as a “really great image of a bike rack” as an example of how much more room cars require than bikes.
They used the wider gap in rail development to underline that contrast.
“Meanwhile, there’s this whole other country developing high speed trains that put the current most advanced high speed trains to shame,” bonusmoles declared. “And we don’t even have any of the outdated, older high speed trains here in the United States.”
The situation sparked outrage with TikTok viewers. Some had their own theories about why mass transit couldn’t take off in America.
“Because high speed trains benefit people but not corporations and billionaires,” one commenter explained.
Others blamed the logistics of private property and the various stakeholders who would lose out if trains were ascendant. Whatever the case, the overall sentiment was dissatisfaction with the direction of transportation in the U.S.
A viewer exclaimed: “This country’s priorities are wrong!”
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