Urban transportation isn’t dead. It’s a zombie. Why? Because it’s lifeless yet it continues to move. How do you know something is alive? Because it changes. A rock? Doesn’t move, it’s not alive. A fungus on that rock? It’s alive. It changes.
Urban transportation has not changed in a century (more or less; I’m not going to quibble). The trolley was invented in 1888. It’s now 129 years later, and what? The same trolley cars still run in several cities, and the modern versions of them in many more cities. The automobile, 1886. The motorized ferry to New York City, 1817, the municipal Staten Island Ferry, 1905. The T in Boston dates from 1897, well more than a century old. Motor buses, 1895.
Various new ideas get proposed, from Musk’s Hyperloop, to the Danish RUF, or other forms of PRT (Personal Rapid Transit). So far, nothing. Why? Because government dominates transportation in cities and cannot innovate. Sure, it can buy innovations. But it cannot innovate itself.