I've lived in Sacramento, San Diego and Seattle. I've taken mass transit and driven a car in all of those cities.

In my experience, in every city, the mass transit sucked. Access to anything not on a bus line is effectively inaccessible without a car. The busses smell like urine. They don't show up on time. Mentally ill people harass me and my dog on a regular enough basis where it's more trouble than it's worth.

I love my car. I don't see it as a thing I'm forced to use, it's something I chose when given the option between it and a bus. It's a safe, climate controlled vehicle which is available at any minute of the day that I want it to be.

I think what you're trying to say is "people will always choose a private air-conditioned car", but I'm saying car use is artificially high because other options are not feasible. Where it is safe and comfortable (i.e. away from cars) to make most of one's journeys (under 5 or 10 miles) by other means, people choose non-car options at a higher rate than people in LA (or Sac etc) are choosing.

You are being obtuse by asking for journal references where they're not needed (this isn't a conference, it's a conversation in the comment section on a website).

I'm asking for you to back up the claim that people in LA hate their cars, not that cars aren't the most popular form of transport there. People hate _traffic_, not their cars. I live somewhere with low traffic. Best of both worlds.

Sure, it would be great to have better public transit options in LA. But I'd wager (because we're going off of our theory of mind intuition, and not polls) that people would prefer their cars to bus transport, even in LA.