I can only speak from the experience I have, which is New York and Flint, Michigan. Both are obvious contrasts between one of the richest and poorest cities in the US. New York has maybe one of the best Subway systems in the world. Having a car in NYC is insane. Everything that isn't covered by bus or train, is bridged by rentable bikes on each corner of a block. Flint could desperately use a couple of busses and a tram, but they can barely afford to keep their river and parks clean of (hopefully) dog poop. I remember seeing tram rails on the road but they where in an inoperable state. The north and west coast has a decent railroad system already but its basically inaccesible without having a car taking you to and from the station. It really felt like each city in the north was fending for their own. A bus system is quite the investment for a city. You can't just start with a couple of busses and then expand. Otherwise you are running the risk of it being the first thing people point fingers at, once city funds run dry.

A lot governments in the world push for increased public transport spending on the federal level. But it seems everybody is to busy trying to put out political fires to properly appropriate state funds. And if they are approved its often half assed and the cities have to make due with what the have anyway. It's the same in my country, I bet its the same in the US. Just because the urgency increased, doesn't mean the capability did es well.

As an examlme of intercity travel, the average annual milage for cars in Michigan is ~12,370 miles . Let's say that's mostly work commute (which from my experience, it is) so that's roughly 50 miles a day during week days. A US class I railroad trains average speed is ~25 mph, a cars about 50 mph (source: readout from my car back during my stay). You'll spend roughly twice the amount of time on your commute. Thats excluding the fact that a car goes door to door and not station to station.

In rural areas of the US a local bus and tram system would surely improve the life of some people. But its not enough of a reason for Americans to change their car culture or for cities to put some money on the table.

Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. In r/fuckcars and also here the term "car centric" and "pedestrian centric" cities is thrown around a lot. Europe is often praised for being build before cars were invented and is therefore naturally friendlier towards pedestrians. But it's not like busses are hovering above the buildings, they are as much car as an SUV, even bigger and bulkier. They have to squish themselves around tight corners. Whole roads get turned into one way streets because a new bus line was opened and now a bus and a car wouldn't be able to pass each other in this medival inner city alley. Public transport requires infrastructure, which means property has to be acquired. One douche not wanting to sell his shed to the city, can grind a whole project into halt. Even if the government took extensive action to invest into public transport, there's only so much they can do. And theres a long line of burrocracy between cause and effect.

In my city at least, I've never experienced the government trying to cull the public transport, there's been a steady improvement over the past 15 years. New lines, Better busses (also electric ones) have been added. Busses have their own traffic lights to give them time to de- and accelerate. But the city is literary at its capacity. It has reached the point of diminishing returns for public transport.

I didn't say it cost gas only. Quite the opposite, I ignored the gas cost and shown only my rough cost of ownership. It's just the fact that the huge entry price of buying a car is put in parallel to low ticket prices, when really, it shouldn't. Otherwise you could also add the cost of shoes and clothes to the train ticket, because well you can't exactly ride a train barefoot and in your undies. And all the food for the energy spend walking from station to station, can't forget that.

Yes a decent car can cost between 5 - 10K used, but if you take care of it you will get most of that money back. And I'm not talking about SUVs or Pickup Trucks, but compact hatchbacks with 30mpg or 6-7L per 100km. The engines easily last 10+ years with regular but minor maintanace. 2000s Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas can easily outlast multiple generations of trains and busses.

My city has gone through 4 generations of bus fleets while my buddies dad still rocks a VW T4 camper probably on his 2nd milage gauge loop. We figured out how to make the perfect car in 1993 when McLaren build the F1. Nothing beats low weight and a reliable engine. The big mistake was letting heavy SUVs become the go to car for everybody. Historicaly speaking, it's an overcorrection from the US being invaded by small cheap and reliable Japanese hatchbacks in the 90s. An that I itself was an overcorrection form gigantic 20 feet long cars from the 70s and 80s. SUVs and Pickup Trucks are like a fashion trend, they are not here to stay. Slick E-vehicles seem to be the newest trend, they just haven't fully found the shape they want to be in yet.

From the point of physics, a train weighs hundreds of tons and is pulling another hundreds of tons of weight. A hatchback weight 1-2 tons. They work on the same principles. They need energy to accelerate their mass. Trains need to carry a lot of people to break even otherwise they are just pulling themselves for nothing. You should be uncomfortable having a whole cart to yourself. Sure a car might be 100 times lighter but the train can carry 200 times more people at max capacity. Max capacity being an important factor. Most trains travel way below that. Remove all the traffic lights and hills from a cars path and it will be just as efficient as a train. Trains are just really good mass haulers.

One of the major advantages that trains have over cars is their electric engine. Electric engines have an efficiency of roughly 80 - 90% for transferring energy into motion. Car engines only 20 - 40%. And combustion engine are at their economical limit. Putting electric engines in cars is putting them directly on par with trains.

Thats why we shift towards EVs, because we already have everything but the batteries and charging figured out anyway. Public transport is a political issue, EVs are an engineering and marketing issue.

Yeah that would definitely be easier to implement in North America, due to the current layouts, I was talking about my own environment in Europe.