As far as I'm aware, the only city in the western world that truly kept its pre-automobile streetcar network was Melbourne, Australia. A result is it today has the largest tram network of any city in the world.

It hurts my soul to imagine how basically every city in North America had similar networks, but they were almost completely annihilated, save for small fragments in a small handful of cities.

Now I can only speak for the US, but most major cities have ring roads or some sort of bypass that would be perfect for a hub and spoke sort of setup alongside them. Maybe it's just the fact that the university I went to famously has a light rail system and the concept is just embedded in me, but I'd imagine the uptake of a park and ride approach with stations out in the burbs (certainly not all of them, but laid out so that you don't need to go more than a burb or two over to reach a station) would be high enough to be worth it. Putting in some shops at the stations like an airport foodcourt would help offset building costs and whatnot to a degree over time as well. Then you could tie the hubs into other major cities in the state and you've got yourself a compelling transit system, doubly so if those cities have subways.

That's why we need to build trains and trams in rural and suburban areas to save time and money

When I switched to riding my bike to work the commute was almost identical. However, I was riding in traffic and after my second close call with a car door I called it quits.

If we had dedicated bike lanes where I live I would 100% still be riding to work.

They're showing capacity, i.e., a 3.5m sidewalk can move about 15k people per direction per hour. I'm guessing there's leeway for cars depending on intersection types/design, speed, etc., whereas there is much less variation in average speed for pedestrians.

This visualization is space efficiency.

Obviously cars have terrible energy efficiency. The most efficient vehicle is a bicycle, since exercise is good for you it's arguably negative energy usage.

As for time efficiency, you have to consider car dependent development as a package. Everything spreads out, so overall there may not be an improvement in time efficiency, especially when you factor in the longer travel time of people not in cars. You could even consider the time spent working to pay for the car, or the time lost from people killed by the car, and I doubt cars would come out particularly time efficient then.

They're measuring how many people can pass through a fixed point in space in an hour, not how long it takes one person to get from point A to point B.

So not really time or energy, but quantity.

And usage of space. And money, at least if you include all the externalities.

Depends on the city and the route. It takes me an hour to get to work by public transit, from my place to the office that's at the other end of the city. Google maps assures me it'd be longer if I drove, and knowing this city I definitely believe it.

The context is that they're showing one metric among many and are hoping you'll draw the conclusion they want: that cars are an inefficient way to travel. It'd be interesting to see distance and time metrics added. For example, while pedestrian capacity is pretty large, the distance travelled for any specific time period is short, so people aren't walking somewhere 100 miles away.

Similarly, door-to-door travel time can vary a lot. Suburban commuter rail around here is fast, but you need to drive to the station (because suburbs are designed for cars), wait for a train, commute on the train, then find your way to your actual destination from the station you get off the train at, so that might include walking or public transit.

Obviously, any one of the options can make the most sense in a given situation, but the infographic isn't trying to show that.

I agree the graphic alone isn't super clear. I read it as the higher number being the potential capacity (such as in a particularly high-capacity system), and the lower number being the more typical capacity. Consider suburban rail, for instance. Some systems might have double-decker trains and more compact seating that allows for higher capacity, whereas some may have just single-decker trains. The double-decker system will have a higher capacity, whereas the single-decker might be more representative of what the "average" capacity of a suburban rail system might be, while the higher number might be more representative of the "potential" capacity of a suburban rail system when you really push it to its limit.

But cars have their place.

True. However with all the downsides of cars, they should be only the fallback if most other options don't work. As it is, in many places, they are the highest priority that everything is planned around.

They're only faster because transit infrastructure is built exclusively for cars at the expense of everyone else, including car drivers. Driving during rush hour sucks, but many people don't have a choice.

The only thing I wish is that we had more accessible and safe single-seat vehicles. I bring 3 empty seats with me to work every day. I would be more than happy to have a cheap, efficient single seat vehicle for commuting if it was safe. I'm not going to ride a motorcycle 25 miles each way every day in the Florida heat and rain. I'm certainly not going to share the road with the maniacs we have here on a motorcycle.

Ain't nothing comfortable about being in an environment where one wrong move will end your life

There is always exceptions and in some areas, you have to have some cars. But removing most of the cars and replacing most of the 8 lanes of traffic with alternatives would be more than enough.