That's something that would change with time though, hopefully. Useful rail infrastructure, along with increased traffic congestion, encourages commercial and r

That's something that would change with time though, hopefully. Useful rail infrastructure, along with increased traffic congestion, encourages commercial and residential development (some may call this 'transit oriented development' but I think that is too narrow a term, and conjures the wrong image for some people) that makes the rail system more and more useful with time. As an example, consider cities that predate multi-lane highways. Their highest density development tends to radiate out from the city centre along train lines, not roads, and the train stations have become commercial hubs where you can run a lot of random errands (with supermarkets, bank branches, post offices, etc.)