Man, this is why we need more walkable cities. As great as it would be to roll something out like this in North America, the distances that would need to be covered in suburbs especially would be too much for something like this.
Well, you don't get that many basements in walkable cities.
I live in a suburb in a town designed as a car based place. We have a parkway, even.
We do have local shops - I'm about as far from one as you can be, so I have two in opposite directions each 20 minutes walk away
The local government is trying to densify the suburbs and allow us to build multiple residences on our block, but they limit the number of residences by the size of the block
So even though some houses right by the shops got rebuilt recently they are each 2 individual residences, where that place and its public transport links could easily support as many as would fit
If they really wanted us to increase density they'd let those people build four or five floors of apartments, they'd let me build a quadplex
doesn't america have way laxer regulations on e-bike speed? even at european speeds you can cover a significant part of chicago in an hour on an e-bike.
Make them electric, lay bicycle paths that cut through the otherwise windy nonsensical suburban layouts, and you have something decent.
It may not work for even more remote, even more spread-out areas but that's okay.
