There are indeed plenty of poorly run transit systems in the US that don't accomplish much.
The trouble starts when they are built by whichever company is shoveling money into the back pockets of whichever city council is in place this decade. This is how you get multiple over redundant, but under reaching systems in the same city all with different power systems and even rail gauges. Also when cities do the bare fucking minimum to qualify for federal grants to virtue signal and then don't maintain what they have. A city has to be willing to spend the money up front on a large, proven system which includes the right of ways for future expansion.
The Washington D.C. metro is a good example of a system done right. Los Angeles is a joke. New York does what it can with what it inherited. Portland, OR, and Seattle, WA, are simply insane. Seriously, fuck monorails (with one exception).
Japan generally has their shit together.
A system is only successful if it's faster, cheaper, and easier than driving.
And really it's not feasible in a lot of US cities.
Depending on how they're laid out. What they need is distributed high speed commuter rail on standard gauge with a limited number of distant stations with LOTS of outer station parking, ring routes, and intracity bus depots as part of each station. Also single system payment.
The problem is it's cheapest to organize that before the sprawl happens, because it gets more and more expensive the longer you wait, and politicians like to virtue signal with worthless halfassery instead of creating actual solutions.
The optimist in me wants to believe that Chris could hold down the right kind of job if it provided immediate gratification, but it would also have to be a job that required little supervision.
The thing of it is, we don't really know what Chris is capable of, employment wise, because Chris has never been hungry. Not working has always been an option for him. And as long as that remains an option, he simply will not work.
