But the person is assuming the result would still be poor public transport. In a sense they’re right, spending a lot of money to still take “an hour to get somewhere that a car will reach in ten minutes” would not be worth it because that would be a failure, but assuming failure isn’t a reason to argue against it when lots of places do it well and benefit greatly from it. Reaching for an analogy, it’s a bit like saying we shouldn’t make an omelette because it’ll be raw if we don’t cook it and that would be a waste of money.
But the person is assuming the result would still be poor public transport. In a sense they’re right, spending a lot of money to still take “an hour to get somewhere that a car will reach in ten minutes” would not be worth it because that would be a failure, but assuming failure isn’t a reason to argue against it when lots of places do it well and benefit greatly from it. Reaching for an analogy, it’s a bit like saying we shouldn’t make an omelette because it’ll be raw if we don’t cook it and that would be a waste of money.