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While you are correct the Netherlands has a higher pop density it really doesn't matter, for a country as a whole. See, Russia has a population density of 8.4/

While you are correct the Netherlands has a higher pop density it really doesn't matter, for a country as a whole. See, Russia has a population density of 8.4/km2 (vs 33km2 in US). But that doesn't stop Russian cities from building public transport. Just like how empty acreage and dessert wouldn't stop US cities from building decent public transport. What matters is not the average density of the country, but the layouts of the cities. A good example is NYC. According to your statement it shouldn't have public transport because the average of the country is too sparsely populated, but that doesn't really matter. Just like how the empty tundra in Russia doesn't prevent Moscow or St Peterburg from building public transport.

Mvandenbergh 6y ago
Indeed. You really have to look at settlement patterns and not just a single scalar density. What makes public transport difficult in the US is that suburbs are dense enough that a lot of people live there but not dense enough to put in efficient public transport. If you drew a histogram of the Russian population sorted by density, you would find that a very large % of the population lived in dense local areas and a relatively small population is spread over the vast rural parts of the country. Not even just tundra, even Russia West of the Urals is very sparsely populated for the most part.