I guess you don't know anyone that makes under $50k/yr. in the US. I'm guessing you probably just associate with other high-paid techies who can't understand why commoners just can't "eat cake". Trust me: when a bus route is shut down because rich people sniffle at a 0.2% tax for something they'd be too embarrassed to use, thousands suffer. If you've never had to switch from a 30 minute bus ride to a 1hr bus ride because of this, you will not understand any of this debate or its consequences, as I stated.
I was merely saying that for public transportation to be viable again in these cities, someone has to act - either by lobbying loudly and/or by putting their money where their mouth is.
Proposing that autonomous driving is the only way forward sounds pretty sad to me as it doesn't solve the main issue with cars: their environmental impact.
I didn't mean it would be easy to do, nor that it is decently doable to use public transportation in these cities' current state. Sorry if it came out that way.