This is mostly true until it's time to build an interstate.

a small group of people who own some parts of the land can block any development

Almost all NIMBY opposition to development comes from people who do not own the land in question.

You’d think so, but in fact it’s almost the opposite! You can own your land all you want but your neighbor has a final say on what’s allowed on your land.

land rights aren't exactly a constitutional right, but the 5th amendment makes it hard to take it, so in practice would probably require a constitutional amendment.

Eminent domain is designed for this. People are compelled to sell.

The US is the country that originated Georgism.

The US is hamstrung by its government design separating and/or conflicting regional transit planning duties between states, counties, cities, and the federal government.

It’s really hard to get a solid regional transit plan going when every town has its own local ordinances and zoning laws, the state has different priorities than the city, and funding for large projects tends to come from the federal government.

Land ownership doesn’t even seem to frequently be the problem in most US projects. It definitely can be like with California high speed rail where land purchases are a massive expense, but I think most issues with regional transit planning come from different root causes.

For example, until this year after legislative reform, the suburban and city transit authorities in Chicago didn’t work together and operated as independent entities. I imagine that this type of lack of cooperation within the same metro area might seem a little crazy in some places.

I’ve even read an articles about how the US bus manufacturing industry is highly consolidated because US metropolitan transit agencies over-customize their orders rather than agreeing on standardized designs across the country to make a more competitive vendor environment possible. US agencies overpay for buses compared to European and Asian transit authorities.

I also think that the US has lacked a lot of creativity when it comes to transit fiscal sustainability. The existing 90%+ of people who primarily use cars to get around can barely imagine a comprehensive public transit system existing, and they don’t want to fund it, and certainly can’t imagine a system where it’s sustainable and even profitable. Since the majority of people live this way in a car-dependent world, those are also the majority of people who make up our legislative bodies.

I’ve heard all the excuses before: “we can’t be like Europe or Asia living on top of each other, giving up cars would be going backwards, I live in a small town [1] we can’t have public transit here, there are homeless people on the bus, it’s not safe…”

[1] population: 30,000

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