because due to multiple decades of bad lobbying seriously messing up regulations related to cars and trains in such a manifold multi layered an sometimes well h

because due to multiple decades of bad lobbying seriously messing up regulations related to cars and trains in such a manifold multi layered an sometimes well hidden ways that it's basically impossible to build proper public transportation in many (not all) areas of the US this lead to a situation where a lot of well meant public transport projects had very underwhelming results worse if how in many areas trains just don't integrate well with the surrounding in the US. For public transportation to be usable it needs to be reachable. This means reliable and save walkways and/or bicycle ways to the next bus/train station (and having the schedule of trains and busses synced up even if they are from different providers). It also means you shouldn't have a massive parking lot directly in the front of the train station (don't mean there can't be a parking lot, just not in front) and similar Another problem is the approach to housing the US has, for public transportation to work well (especially wrt. cost) you need to have reasonable compact housing. For example in many EU citices where public transportation is the main transport factors the main used housing unit is a apartment block often something like 2-4 apartments per floor and 3-5 floors where even in the more rural close by city areas houses often have 2 or 3 apartments or if not are in general much smaller then housing in the US (but in many rural areas in the EU cars are the main transport mean, often followed by bicycles for "short trips to "close by" neighbors, restaurants etc.). If you combine that with the fact or how convenient privileged cars are in the US it really strongly favors self driving cars in many places (except some of the quite compact city centers, where cars of any form are a curse and self driving cars won't fix that).