Public transit has been run at barebone levels in the US for so long that hardly anyone even thinks of it as something that should, or even can, function well.

Public transit has been run at barebone levels in the US for so long that hardly anyone even thinks of it as something that should, or even can, function well. For a route in my city, a 14 minute drive in a car is 83 minutes on public transit. The three buses come every 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and 60 minutes respectively. There are no bus lanes, because drivers are a powerful and greedy constituency. There's no political will to convert one lane on each road to bus-only, to add traffic signal prioritization, or to buy enough buses and hire enough drivers to have 10-15 minute headways. Even if we did, we're fighting uphill against 70 years of suburbanization and the general pattern of very sparse and sprawling development. The level of taxation necessary to make transit work well in many areas would be far more than is politically feasible. Plus there's the perception of public transit being dangerous, for criminals and drug addicts, etc.