Yes, a few American cities have good public transit, probably rivaling Europe. Chicago and NYC are at least two, there may be others. But once you get outside o

Yes, a few American cities have good public transit, probably rivaling Europe. Chicago and NYC are at least two, there may be others. But once you get outside of those kinds of major metropolis areas, it's pretty bleak. My town (pop. about 80,000) has a bus system. It's a college town, and a few routes that run between campus and student apartment neighborhoods are heavily used. But otherwise most of the buses drive around empty especially mid-day and at night. It's not anywhere close to self-sufficient. It contributes to a lot of people who don't use the bus themselves to think the whole system is a waste of money. Especially when you see a large diesel bus driving around with zero, one, or two people on board. We'd keep 90% of the benefit and cut a huge amount of cost if we just killed off all the routes that the students don't use. But the system is more political than pragmatic so it doesn't happen.